


Luminous Flux

by TimeToGetSithFaced



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Realities, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Eventual Smut, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Hope It Doesn't Suck Too Hard, Hux Is Terrible In This, Inspired by Music, Inspired by Poetry, Jesus This Is Terrifying, Kidnapping, My First Work in This Fandom, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Torture, Power Play, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Some TFA Spoilers, Sorry In Advance If It Does, Torture, Whipping, but I still love him, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 18:12:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6019963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeToGetSithFaced/pseuds/TimeToGetSithFaced
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her existence was written of in the oldest stories in every galaxy, every universe. Her potential existence was the one constant in every alternate reality imaginable. But she was a myth, and only a myth... until one day, she wasn't. </p><p>Her mother knew from the day her daughter was born what sort of danger Thea was in. She knew that her existence meant that someone would always be looking for her. Her only chance at any sort of life was to stay hidden, but for such a bright light to be born on the ever-dark side of Gorse seemed almost cruel. </p><p>Thea knew from an impossibly young age that this time, this life, was different. That this time, this life, was where her destiny awaited her. </p><p>(Kylo Ren x OC)</p><p>*Weekly Updates delayed due to life >.> I will try to have the next chapter up mid-July. Serious apologise for the delay. But please don't worry - I have not given up on this (I have the entire story line figured out already lol so)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Girl Who Danced Upon A Thousand Suns

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, well hello there! Thank you for taking an interest in my first Star Wars fic EVER! :D I've been mulling over this idea for a month or so now, jotting down ideas in my phone during my crowded Tokyo-commutes. Finally, I've decided that I have enough pre-writing done to begin releasing chapters to you~ 
> 
> As a heads up, I am intending to release one chapter per week. Any encouragement or corrections you have for me are welcome, and constructive criticism will be taken in stride for the future. This is not only my first attempt to write for this fandom, but in fact, it is my first crack at writing as a single-author in nearly 5 years. 
> 
> Please note, though, that this story might not stick as close to cannon as you'd like it to, although I do my best to consider personalities when I write (I am a Psychology major after all!) so I am hoping that I have at least captured half of what I wanted to express through each character.

I have died many times.

I have died many times, countless times. Many faces have hidden away my soul, each one changing as the years slid by… each one changing to fit the timeline. Each death changing to fit the timeline.

Drownings. Murder. Suicide. Natural causes… Each and every time it feels as if I’m experiencing it – death – once more, for the first time. No one ever gets used to dying.

Especially when you’re murdered. Especially when your life is stolen from you for reasons you don’t quite understand.

Strangulation was the last way that I went. The high that came at the end of it all, the black dots bursting in my vision as capillaries burst in my eyes… It was almost magical at the very end, almost surreal. I’d been murdered by a knife before, among other things – that one was definitely not pleasant, especially when you’ve been dismembered while you’re still alive. At least I have had the pleasure of saying that I’ve been murdered by a famous serial killer, right?

Ah, but famous… Famous was relative to the timeline. Famous was relative to the reality.

Everything was always relevant to the reality.

I fought the guy who wanted the body I once belonged to so desperately, for something rather unsavory, something I’d rather not think about. I’d always fought the attackers, fought dying. But I’d never truly fought ‘IT’ before. That feeling of slipping off into the spirit world, if you will, back into the timelines. Once IT took hold of me, I let IT pull me along, let myself leave my worldly body, let myself be swept back into the chaos of the universe. I’d never cared enough about those lives to try to hold on desperately to them once I felt the pull of ‘IT’ in the back of my dying mind. It was simply easier to let go – and in those moments, I knew I didn’t belong there anyway. Not really. Not truly.

I was never truly aware of what I was in any of my lives until I came upon my destiny. There were legends written about the Spirit Walker, about the Girl Who Danced Upon A Thousand Suns. They were the only constant in all of the alternate realities and histories that I existed in.

She was a gemstone among worthless rocks. If found, She could provide the answers to all of the most complex quandaries known to the universe. Her knowledge was as unending as time itself, locked away down deep in Her subconscious soul, imprinted in the very molecules of Her existence, to bubble to the surface of Her mind when the face was finally correct. She would not remember, in any other case.

And maybe it wasn’t necessary for Her to, some thought. A little extraction never killed anyone.

Oh, but yes, it did. And it did, many times.

Each of those incorrect faces would perish, each one not knowing until the moment before death – until the moment when ‘IT’ took hold - just what they were. Never knowing in life why their captivity was necessary, why their captors tortured them so – and knowing all too well in death the reasoning for all of it.

Sometimes it was like falling asleep, peaceful, tranquil. Other times, it was cold, metal to the back, lonely; the only companion: the tools used to break and extract.

Governments had had Her before. Kings had had Her before. Psychopaths had had Her before. Each one had different motives – each one monsters in their own right. Some didn’t even know who She was, but for those who did, it was only a matter of breaking Her open for the information to come forward, even if every time before that had not been the case.

Even if it was not time. Even if Her destiny was not _their_ time.

Her existence, and as such _my_ existence, was a constant game of hide and seek.

And so it was, that I was born again on the ever-dark side of Gorse. I was born into a relatively lower middle-class life - I had worn that sort of face before. But I had never worn _this_ face before, and upon entering the world for the first time, my soul knew that something about this time was different. That this was the time when Her destiny was to be played out. That She and I were one and the same.

My mother was well aware of the implications of who her daughter was. The little girl with the skin of the Sun, eyes of fire and wisdom.

So I was hidden away, to protect the hope that was given to this universe, to this timeline. To protect the life of the girl who knew that she knew too much. Whose thoughts blazed with the lifeblood of the stars, of the sun. Who, in the wrong hands, could be made and molded and used to bring about the end of all days.

This time, I knew the ramifications of being caught. I remembered all of the thousand lives before. I remembered death and fear among them, and I let these thoughts of remaining intact cloud my mind for 21 long years before the grey ships finally came for me.

On that day, I remembered why - in all of my lives and all of my years of existence - I had never liked to play hide and seek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all, again, for taking an interest in my story! This is only the prologue, but I am giving you all a little something extra with the first chapter included this week as well~ Reviews are always appreciated and addressed! :) 
> 
> I know that the 'voice' in this chapter is a little strange, because it's sort of from first and third person narrative at the same time. Essentially, the way I interpreted this was almost as if my OC was telling the reader about her life experiences and her interpretations herself. Expect third-person narrative throughout the remainder of this story.


	2. From The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a second chapter, as the first is more or less a prologue. Wanted to get you guys into the story, first~ Didn't want to leave you hanging for a week ;)

The world around her was chaos.

Thea crouched low in the corner, hidden behind a curtain in the storage area below the cellar stairs. Her breath came in short gasps, her eyes quickly adjusting to the dark she had tucked herself away in. She could feel the shudder of fear coursing through her body, right down to her bones. It shook her to the core.

The crashing of plates and the abruptly silenced scream of her mother’s voice only caused the blood coursing within her veins to run cold. She could hear the footsteps of the men in white as they made their way through her house, breaking and overturning everything in their way.

They were looking for her, and she knew it.

When the footfalls finally found themselves crashing down upon the wood above her head, Thea had to bite down on her leather-gloved hand to keep from crying out. A thousand lives worth of fear and anticipation of capture clouded her thoughts momentarily – it was dizzying, maddening. It was all she could do not to make a sound.

She tried desperately to calm her erratic breathing, but nothing would do. The feeling of knowing, of dread and **_knowing_** that she was about to be caught and there was _nothing she could do about it_ , washed over her form. It bubbled up inside of her chest and threatened to spill out from her body if it was held captive for too long. She could practically feel the panic attack hurtling towards her, like a train bearing down on her – the momentary memory trigger of locomotives calmed her racing heart only briefly. And then the curtain was being pulled back, and white armor-clad arms were grabbing for her.

Her arms instinctively shot out to push away the onslaught of the men who had come for her. But there were simply too many of them, and Thea was dragged from her hiding spot, kicking and screaming the whole way.

“Silence!” one of the soulless, robotic voices shouted at her, but she would hear none of it. As they dragged her struggling form from the cellar, the first thing that she noticed was the impossibly still form of her mother against the floor. That, and the pool of blood that was spreading ever outwards from beneath her head, soaking into the very knots of the wood below. Her screams and struggling increased exponentially, and the men in white armor had seemed to grow tired of her protests.

“RJ-1099, silence her before she alerts the whole quarter.”

The lifeless eyes of her mother were the last things Thea saw before a sharp pain surged through her entire body, and she was out cold.

 

* * *

 

 

_A five year-old Thea stood in the kitchen, her mother’s arms encircling her petite form. “But why can’t I play outside with the other children anymore, mama?”_

_Lutilee Aylin pulled slightly away from her daughter, just so much so that she could regard her at arms-length. Knees against the floor as she crouched to maintain eye contact with the small child, her thin arms held her daughter by the shoulders as she gazed deep into those impossibly-knowing eyes._

_“_ _My little Thea, you know why. Look deep within yourself, and tell me…”_

_“Because… because someone will come to find me, when they see what I am. And they will take me away.” Lutilee could have almost cried at the complete understanding that was written across the tiny face before her. Thea had always known too much, and it was blatantly obvious to her mother why that was the case._

_“_ _Because I do not want to lose you, my precious little Thea…” Her arms quickly encircled her only child once more, hugging her tightly against her frame. “You are such a bright light in such a dark place. You are so important; do you know this, Thea?”_

_Thea rested her small head against her mother’s shoulder, her own offering of comfort. “I know, mama.”_

_Lutilee knew that the little girl in her arms knew all too well. And that thought scared her most of all._

 

* * *

 

 

_It was the week before the men in the white armor came, and Thea felt like she was watching herself on a screen in front of her. Much akin to the movie theaters in her most recent life._

_She’d always hated those._

_She watched herself don the outfit she had worn for just over a decade: black boots, long black pants, long sleeved black top, black leather gloves, black cape with its hood pulled over her face, black face mask pulled up to the bottom of her eyes, black, black, **black**. _

_With the heavy feeling of knowing buried deep within the pit of her stomach, Thea watched herself grab her satchel and move out of the house. She was on a run for supplies, the same run that she had done month after month, year in and year out. She wore the same outfit much as she had done year in and year out; black to blend into the shadows of a planet already half-cast in shadow, and black to keep her safe from her own future._

_At least, that was the intent._

_It was on that particular supply run that Thea had run into trouble that she couldn’t avoid. It wasn’t to say that she hadn’t had trouble in the past, but this time, her mind had been occupied with infinitely too many thoughts, and she had gotten distracted._

_One of the neighborhood kids had snuck up on her, and attempted to steal her pouch of supplies away from her – no doubt to go off and sell on his own at exceptionally higher prices – but she had held fast to the bag. In her attempt to remove his hands, she had neglected to notice the second accomplice, who came at her with a knife. In the scuffle that proceeded between the three, Thea’s hood was knocked back, and her mask half torn from her face. One sleeve had also been torn from her shirt. But the way her body gave off light frightened the two teens away, and left Thea standing exposed in an alleyway with her satchel._

_Before she’d had a chance to cover her exposed arm with her cape, and cover her head with her hood once more, she noticed the shocked eyes of a passerby of the alley. She knew that her skin seemed to glow so much more in the near absence of light, and she quickly covered herself, though not before the passerby had gotten a good look at the bright, fierce eyes within her skull._

_With only one quick glance backward, Thea had fled to her home, hoping beyond hope that the individual who had seen her was merely a passerby unknown to the 3rd quarter, who wouldn’t recognize the golden orbs within her head._

_When her mother saw her state, she quickly gathered her daughter against her. “Did someone see you Thea?”_

_The girl within her arms was quiet for a long while._

_“Thea, please. I must know. If someone saw you…”_

_Thea pulled away from the frailer woman. The look in her golden eyes said a lot of things, but it said the one thing that Lutilee never wanted to hear._

_“_ _Listen, Thea, darling. Listen carefully to me. When the time comes, you must hide. Hide, and no matter what you hear, you must not let them find you.”_

_How she wished now that she had been able to honor the wishes of her late-mother._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for the read! Please review - any thoughts you have are greatly appreciated! 
> 
> Expect an update in about a weeks time.


	3. Metal To The Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh I know I said one weeks time, but I might just want to spoil you guys~ 
> 
> A very special thank you to my first comment for this story AND my first comment ever on A03! Thank you BooBear87~! :D   
> And a special thanks to all who gave me Kudos and subscribed~ I'm so glad you guys are enjoying my work so far, so here's the next chapter, slightly earlier than promised~ <3

The first thing that struck Thea when she awoke was how _much_ her side hurt. She was certain she could still feel the crackle of electricity within her veins, and she groaned without meaning to when she accidentally brushed up against the side of her waist. Pain radiated outward like cracks in the surface of a frozen lake. The girl had to take a handful of deep, calming breaths to abate the black dots that danced in her vision, threatening to pull her into the world of the unconscious once more.

The second thing that struck Thea, once she had finally calmed enough from the pain to realize what was going on, was how unbelievably cold she was. The temperature in the room notwithstanding, the cool touch of metal to her back was what was really the cause of the shiver that threatened to make her side all the more uncomfortably painful.

Finally with enough sense about her to really take in what was going on, she turned her eyes around the room, trying to understand where she was. It didn’t take her long – no, Thea had been in too many of the same situations before.

The feeling of the metal cuffs holding her wrists securely to the table was so nostalgic that it was sickening. No, _this_ body had never felt the cool touch of metal cuffs, or the icy smoothness of an interrogation table, but this _soul_ had, and it had known these things many, many times before.

Her mind was taking her through one of those experiences, then. Reality fogged slightly as she was reminded of just how much the bite of a medical-grade bone saw hurt, and how brands weren’t always used for livestock. The passage of time had no business in her mind as snippets of memories flashed before her eyes, reminding her of how much agony would come, before ‘IT’ sank its soothing claws into her once more and drug her beyond the brink of death.

Before she’d even had a chance to attempt to think about escaping her confines, the door was opening and a man was stepping into the room. He was dressed to the nines, black uniform pressed smooth, all straight lines and hard edges. His black hair was slicked back under his uniform cap – she wasn’t sure how important this man was, but at the very least, she recognized that he outranked the men in the white armor who had drug her from her home and murdered her mother. A memory fizzled somewhere in her mind, and she grabbed out at it, grasping onto the name Stormtrooper. Yes, those were the men in white.

But she had no idea who this might be.

And he didn’t seem inclined to offer that information, either.

He stared at her for a long time after the door had slid shut behind him, arms clasped tightly behind his back. She watched him as well, her own expression as neutral as she could offer around the pain she felt still burning her side. She was thankful for her hood – that all of her clothes remained intact – for it offered its own reprieve when she shifted in a way that caused those spider web shots of pain to shoot through her side. He would not see the agony in her eyes then – she would not offer that to him. At least, for now.

“Name.” He finally spoke, his voice a stark contrast against the eerily quiet hum in the air around them.

She watched him for a moment too long, and he seemed to grow immediately frustrated. “Name,” he repeated, and she could see he would not be asking her another time.

She debated lying to him, but didn’t know why it would even matter anyway. The only person in her life, in this life, that had ever mattered to her was dead, and she was the prisoner of these men.

What did she have to hide anyway, she mused briefly.

Only everything.

“Thea.”

“Thea what?”

“Thea Aylin.”

The man in black seemed pleased that she had finally answered his question, and continued on with another one. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one years.” She was watching him, trying to gauge his reactions, but he offered her none that she could analyze.

“And what planet are you from?”

Thea’s eyes narrowed slightly. He knew what planet she was from, she thought. It was his men that had dragged her here in the first place. It was all of them. “Gorse”, she finally replied, and she watched with bitter eyes as his grin seemed to grow just _slightly_. He must have been pretty damn pleased with himself, she mused, getting everything he was sent here to get.

“Where is the location of your Resistance base?” It wasn’t really posed as a question.

She snapped her mouth together at that one. _‘What?’_ she thought, narrowing her eyes at him from under her hood. Resistance base? Who did he think she--

He’d stopped the slow pacing that he’d begun when she didn’t answer; only his head turned to look at her. His eyes narrowed. “I will not make it a habit to repeat myself. Do you understand?” Thea was silent in response. “ _Where_ is the location of your Resistance base?”

She clenched her jaw before answering. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The man in black whirled on her then, the back of his leather gloved hand coming in direct contact with the side of her face. The crack that resounded in the room was so sharp, she wondered briefly if he’d broken her jaw. Stars and tears danced in her vision, but she blinked them away as quickly as she could.

She had been through much worse before, Thea reminded herself.

That thought didn’t stop the stinging and pains that shot up the side of her head as she turned to face him once more, though.

His jaw was clenched, as were his fists. “Where is the location of your Resistance base?” He’d narrowed his eyes at her.

Thea had half a mind to spit on his shoes in response, but knew such an action would only prolong and increase her suffering before death. She’d made that mistake a few times, with other faces. She chose to remain silent.

But the man with the slicked back black hair didn’t seem too thrilled at her silence, and made his way to a panel on the wall. She heard a few beeping sounds from a code being input into the panel, before a hidden door opened revealing what she should have figured was coming next. An array of interrogation tools were stored within, and Thea wondered why it _always_ came to this.

He stared at them for a moment before his hands settled on a Taser baton. She could almost see the grin through the back of his head.

He turned on her then, baton in his hand, charge powered up as he approached. “I hate having to repeat myself.”

Thea felt her body tense in reaction to his approach, and willed the upcoming pain to remain at bay. But she could only prepare herself so much, before he jabbed her in the side with it briefly. She felt a wave of electricity course through her system, and a radial wave of pain follow immediately after. Of course – her reeling brain thought in a humored agony – he _just had_ to stick her with it where she’d been stunned with a blaster before.

He seemed to take delight in the faint gasps from her throat as Thea tried to gather her sense about her once more. “Where is the location of your Resistance base?”

With fire in her eyes, she finally turned her head to meet his fully, so he could see the anger, the eerily impossible _knowing_ , that swirled within those golden pools. She almost took delight in the slight look of shock in his eyes, before it was once again hidden behind his cruel mask. “I don’t know anything about a Resistance base," she bit out; her words were true.

A spark of anger flashed in his eyes, and she felt the butt end of the baton strike the side of her face, causing her to be temporarily blinded from the red she saw in her vision. Thea could feel the trickle of blood that slowly left the cut she knew now graced her facial features – even the roll of blood against the wound stung.

“Insolent girl,” he began, jabbing her once more in the side. Her resolve was slowly crumbling, and a few of her sharp cries of pain began to bubble out of her throat as she was jabbed again and again, the sounds mixing with his voice as he continued to speak. “You _will_ ” – another jab – “tell me where” – another jab – “your Resistance base is!”

Thea knew not how long this continued; she knew only that she _didn’t know_ what he spoke of. Of course, the Resistance was something whispered about on nearly every planet in the known universe – in this known universe – but how could she have been a Resistance fighter, when she’d never done much more than hide away, trying to keep people like himself from torturing out whatever information they thought they wanted from her? Why would anyone even think of her as such?

Eventually the pain in her side began to taper off – she was almost beginning to get used to the shocks, and whoever this man was seemed to be catching on to that. It didn’t seem to please him. He had come for information, and had not gotten what he wanted. Damned if she didn’t actually have any information to give him, but he didn’t know she was telling the truth, and if he did, he certainly didn’t care.

Thea raised her head to look at him once more, her hood having slid slightly off in the midst of all of this. The man with the slicked back hair watched her from across the room as he placed the Taser baton away, before the wall sealed back up and locked.

He seemed to be compiling himself, trying to get his hair back into its perfectly slicked back form – a few pieces had come free in his excited state of being the one who got to torture her first.

Thea knew there were always others. So his next words didn’t surprise her.

“You ought to have offered me the information you hide; it would have been much less painful for you overall.”

And with that, he opened the door. Thea expected him to leave immediately, but he signaled to the men in whi-- no, the Stormtroopers, on the other side of the door, to come in. “Flip her over, so General Hux can have a clean slate to work with.”

She could barely keep herself standing at that point; she was oddly thankful for the cuffs and the slightly tilted table behind her. Thea knew she would have collapsed by now without them. Three Stormtroopers made their way into the room; two to unclasp her wrists and ankles and flip her over, and one to stand constant guard, blaster pointed directly at her head should she attempt to make an escape.

She briefly wondered how many others had tried to escape before.

Cold metal pressed into her face as her wrists were shackled; at first, the touch of metal caused her to flinch in pain as the cut on her face (that was no doubt bruising now) smeared against the surface of the table. But the cold actually offered her some comfort, numbing the stinging and relaxing the swelling around the laceration.

Thea willed herself to keep her eyes open as she heard the door to the room open, the four men exiting, as she was left alone once more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for the read; any comments, questions, or concerns you have regarding this story can be left in the comments section below! Feel free to give me some love; I have plenty of my own to share haha
> 
> As last time, expect an update within a week - although you all might get lucky again and have something sooner than that (I'm on bedrest until Sunday, and around getting homework done, I've amassed a nice chunk of chapters already finished). Love you all~! :)


	4. Do Not Go Gentle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, the next chapter. I wish I could have gotten it to you lovely readers sooner, but alas, I am in the midst of midterms, and I didn't have much time to write more chapters to keep giving myself a buffer.  
>  ~~ahahaha SOMEONE KILL ME NOW BEFORE MY JAPANESE MIDTERMS DO!~~  
>  :3 Hope you all enjoy. Thank you to all the new subscribers, to all the lovely individuals who gave me Kudos, and to every single one of you who reads this <3 I love you all.

Thea was once again unaware of how much time had passed around her.

The pain in her side had begun to diminish, but the black dots of unconsciousness still threatened to cloud her eyes, and she fought that too. She wondered when ‘IT’ would come to take hold – how much pain this body could take before ‘IT’ would slip her off into the realms between life and death, between her existences.

Somewhere in the back of Thea’s mind, a memory flickered, and she mentally grasped out at it, trying to grab onto it. Trying to use it as a way to keep herself conscious, to keep herself from passing out.

It was a poem, she realized, as her mind began to fog in memory. One she’d had to memorize in her schooling in her previous life. Like the sound of a record trying to switch on, she began to hear her own voice in her ears, both in memory, and because she too had begun to whisper the poem out loud to herself.

_“Do not go gentle into that good night.”_

Her voice cracked lightly, throat raw from the screaming that she had done minutes, hours ago – she had no idea how long it had been.

 _“Old age should burn and rave at close of day,”_ she felt her voice hitch, but her mind was still in the classroom, reality still fogged over with memories of her classmates sitting in their desks, smiling up at her as she stood in front of the classroom, small hands clasped behind her back.

Different face. Different life. _“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”_

 _“Though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lighting they do not go gentle into that good night.”_ Thea was smiling now, albeit deliriously, a wave of renewed confidence flooding through her veins like adrenaline. She knew not where this energy had come from, but it fueled her, and in her memory, she felt the elation tenfold.

 _“Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright.”_ Her hands grasped at the metal chains that held her wrists bound to the table, and she gave a hard tug. _“Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay.”_ She pulled again, but the chains did not give. _“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”_

Resting her head once more against the table, Thea could feel the words leave her lungs in a whisper of sorts, her mind beginning to recede from the memory and return to this reality. _“Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, do not go gentle into that good night.”_

She still felt the confidence bubbling within her; if she couldn’t be free, she thought, she would give herself over to ‘IT’, before anyone aboard had even the chance to extract what they wanted from her. This poem, this happy memory from a life past, would be her anthem.

The door was opening again, and a lone pair of footfalls entered the room. She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on the feeling of cold metal against her forehead. Trying to let the cold give her the final boost of confidence she needed to encourage the person behind her to tip her over the edge, into the open arms of ‘IT’.

She could see the way her breath left a film of fog against the cool table beneath her face.

_“Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight--"_

“You will tell me where your Resistance base is.”

She could hear the buttons on the panel being pushed, and the low hiss it made as it opened. She could only imagine what he, this so-called General Hux (if she were to believe what the last guy had said), would choose in the vast array of weapons. The flesh of her palms sunk into the chains that held her wrist cuffs to the table as she grasped tightly onto them, readying herself.

_“Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay--“_

She would offer him nothing, so much as she had nothing to give in regards to this Resistance. If he didn’t know who she truly was, that was all for the better, and she would leave this existence as quickly as ‘IT’ would come for her.

It wasn't more than a few moments before she felt the bite of leather against her clothed back, and she bit down so hard on her bottom lip that she could taste iron. The crack in the air alerted her immediately to the whip that was being used on her. How unusually personal, she thought momentarily, before the leather bore down on her back once more, and she unintentionally cried out despite herself.

The man behind her, this General Hux, seemed rather pleased at her pained reaction to his tactic. He must have been informed that the Taser had stopped eliciting a response.

“You will tell me where your Resistance base is, girl. We have all the time in the world.” He cracked her across the back again, this time a lot sharper than the two before. Thea cried out, immediately trying to muffle the sound against the table.

Her shoulders heaved for a moment as she sucked in air, but her will had steeled itself. She would welcome ‘IT’ with open arms, and this was the way to get there.

Around the tears that had begun to flow from the corners of her eyes, and the sobs that threatened to rack through her body, she somehow managed to speak with a voice as unwavering as the Generals determination for her to speak.

_“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”_

This seemed to set him off, and he began to lash out at her with all of his fury. Each strike connected with her back, each crack of the whip echoing through the air. She could feel the blood trickling down her back, soaking into her black shirt.

She knew not how she managed to speak around the pain that was shooting across her back and shoulders, but somehow, this poem that she had memorized as a child – in a different universe, in a different lifetime, in a different reality – had found itself realized here and now, with each crack of the whip.

It was sad, a part of her brain mused around all the pain, that something so wonderful was given it's first taste of life in a new universe under such circumstances.

_“And you, my father, there on the sad height, curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.”_

General Hux was enraged, and the fury of his lashes across her back showed it. How many she had received, she knew not. Her mind was beginning to lose grip of reality, tears pouring down her face as her own blood dotted the floor below her feet. “You will tell me where the other Resistance scum are hiding!” A rather fierce smack of the whip across her shoulders resounded, and Thea made to cry out, but no sound came from her open mouth.

Hux had seemed to calm momentarily, like he thought that she seemed she was going to offer up some piece of information. Although, to describe the man as 'calm' was a bit of a stretch - all of her senses were on fire, and each exhale of his animated breathing sounded like it was screaming in her ears. She could barely hear her own voice when she finally spoke.

But Thea, in all of her pain, willed herself to finish her own epitaph.

She wished then that Hux could have seen the fury in her eyes.

_“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”_

With a cry of his own, Hux lashed out at her again, striking her across one of the many lash-cuts that already marred her skin. Thea could feel herself slipping away, but this time it wasn’t into the arms of death, and it wasn’t into the arms of ‘IT’.

She felt panic rise in her chest at the unconsciousness looming above her, readying itself to cloud her vision over with darkness. _‘_

 _This isn’t right,’_ she thought, head lolling backwards as she tried frantically to fight off the feelings coming at her on all fronts. _‘Where are the arms of death to welcome me? Why has ‘IT’ not come for me?’_

A sob escaped her lips. The sound of the doors opening to the room behind her was muffled under the sharp crack of the whip to her back, but Thea could have sworn she heard it before she passed out, feeling betrayed and alone, wondering where the soft, comforting arms of death were to carry her off into reprieve, into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ho ho hooooo Hux has some futhermucking anger issues, yes he does~  
> And I wonder who's coming through that door, eh? ;D Guesses are always welcome. If you guess right, you get... *digs through a pile of Kylo Ren shit she's collected* ... uh, you get your very own Kylo Ren body pillow~ ;D ahaha *cuddles his face*
> 
> As before, please expect an update in a week! And wish me luck with the rest of my midterms!
> 
> Poem is "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas (1951)


	5. Silver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah sorry I couldn't get you guys this chapter on Saturday like I wanted. I... ended up drinking and playing Cards Against Humanity with friends in celebration of midterms being (almost) over and I crashed at my friends place overnight. And then I had to write a Japanese essay the next day >.> heh
> 
> Buuuuut it is technically Wednesday here in Tokyo, so I'm posting this now in honor of it being one week since I last posted, as per the normal posting schedule. And also because Midterms are OFFICIALLY OVER AS OF TODAYYYY~! I totally killed half of my Japanese midterm and fucked myself on the other half buuut I shall survive. And I totally killed my two other midterms, so I'm pretty happy :) 
> 
> As always, much love to all of my subscribers, to those who bookmarked this story, to all of you who gave kudos, and to each of you who reads this~  
> A special thank you to BooBear87 and Spartaingirl197 for their absolutely wonderful comments <3 You are the best, and your wonderful comments always inspire more words within me~ 
> 
> And now... on with the story~

Captain Phasma sat in her office, pouring over a stack of mission files from about two weeks’ worth of reports. Some of them had arrived on her desk later than they were supposed to, and the prompt and schedule-oriented woman had found it momentarily difficult to calm herself when they were delivered well behind schedule.

There had to be some sort of punishment for that, but she had yet to decide what sort of punishment it ought to be.

There was a series of knocks on her door, and the silver-clad Stormtrooper glanced up from her paperwork. “Come in.” Her response was curt, but rather businesslike in nature.

Through the door stepped one of her Stormtroopers, and she knew him instantly by the insignia on his shoulder. “RJ-9890.”

He saluted her as he spoke. “Captain Phasma.” She signaled him at ease, and he complied.

She watched him as he stood before her, datapad clasped in hand. “To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”

RJ-9890 relaxed slightly in his stance, before offering forward his datapad. “This is the mission log from our recent expedition to Gorse, and my report on the subsequent acquiring of a reported Resistance spy.”

Phasma accepted the mission datapad from his hand, scrolling through the file quickly, one eyebrow raised slightly as she read through. “You’ve _hand_  delivered this quite quickly to me. Why?” Her eyes had moved up to look upon the face of the Stormtrooper before her, or at least to where she knew his eyes rested below his helmet. He seemed to stiffen slightly, but did not answer immediately. Her eyes turned back down to the datapad in her hands. “Everything seems in order, anyway. I appreciate the promptness of your report, but,” she paused next, searching for the correct words. “Something feels missing, if you understand. You described the encounter with the girl as ‘peculiar’, if I am reading this correctly. Why use such language? Were there no better words at your disposal to describe her?”

Her eyes were tilted back to look upon him, and RJ-9890 stiffened once more. After what seemed like a pause that took entirely too long, he spoke. “Permission to speak freely, Captain?”

Phasma had known RJ-9890 for a long time, had trained him personally in a few combat standards. His behavior was not what she would have expected from the seasoned Trooper. Her curiosity was piqued.

“Permission granted.”

RJ-9890 seemed to relax some, before his voice filtered through the robotic voice modulator of his helmet.

“I wanted to bring this situation to your attention because... Well, it was entirely too easy to find her, Captain. When we arrived on Gorse, we were directed by our informant to the home that the girl occupied. Finding the home was the most difficult part of it all of it…” He seemed to hesitate, and Phasma rose an eyebrow in a questioning way, almost encouraging him not to stop there.

After a moment, he continued. “If I am to be honest, Captain, the girl was so easy to find because… to put it bluntly, she glowed.” Phasma kept her face unchanged, but her interest was piqued further.

“Please elaborate.”

RJ-9890 hesitated again, and in that hesitation, she knew he was truly questioning what he had seen. A memory somewhere in her subconscious was awakened, and she half listened to him as he spoke, half concentrated on remembering the thought on the brink of her consciousness.

“Captain, ma'am, her _skin_ glowed. She was hidden below the stairs in the cellar, as you will see in my report. But finding her was like finding a lightbulb in the dark. She struggled to free herself from capture, and in doing so she only seemed to glow _more_.” RJ-9890 shook his head slightly, like he almost couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Her skin gave off this golden-white light--“

Somewhere deep in her memories, Phasma finally latched onto the thought she had been searching for, the Stormtrooper’s voice fading into the noise of the background.

She had read somewhere in her younger days in the First Order, in one of the datapads she’d had access to, about some of the histories and Lore and legends surrounding the First Order, and more particularly related to this situation, the writings of some of the Sith of old. In some of the writings of old, there had been mention of a “child of the suns”, who existed in almost all of the most ancient texts, who’s power existed to give strength to… well, now she couldn’t really recall to who. There’d only been a very brief mention of her – nothing definitive, so the Captain wasn't really sure _why_ this memory had stuck in her head (maybe it was the oddity of the whole thing, she mused). And maybe she was wrong, but Phasma was not one to usually become enamored with stories and fairytales. For all she knew, it had only been meant as an allegory or metaphor. Even still, something about all of this was _strange_ , and… there was something about what RJ-9890 had managed to babble out that struck a chord with her.

_“-- and her eyes were full of fire, like the sun--“_

Phasma made a motion for the Stormtrooper before her to silence himself, which he obeyed immediately. “I think that will be all.” She placed the datapad down on her desk, before reaching for her helmet.

RJ-9890 watched her movements from behind his visor.

“RJ-9890,” Phasma began.

“Ma'am,” he snapped to attention quickly.

“Where is the girl who was recently brought on board?”

He hesitated, but the look that Phasma shot at him as she paused in putting her helmet back on told him that if he valued his position, he would speak. “She is being held in interrogation room 2c.”

The click of her helmet sounded as it slid back into place. “And who is carrying out her interrogation?” Her voice through the helmet sounded just as robotic as his did, albeit the timbre was different.

“Lieutenant Colonel O’Daug was with her, but if he was unable to extract the information, General Hux had said that he would see to it himself.”

Phasma could have cursed in her helmet, but she maintained her composure as she did in all situations thrown her way.

“Thank you RJ-9890, you are excused.”

“Ma'am?” He seemed slightly taken aback as she stood, but the look she threw at him from under her visor (and the silence that accompanied it) threw him into action immediately. “Ma'am, of course, ma'am.” He saluted, and then immediately made his way from the room.

Phasma followed not too soon after, making her way down a few levels to the hallway of interrogation chambers. She soon found her feet in front of 2c, two Stormtroopers positioned at the door. The two saluted her, and she signaled them to return to their previous position.

She opened the door to the room, the sound of a leather switch flying through the air before meeting its target filling her ears. The girl strapped chest-down to the interrogation table cried out in agony, before slumping forwards against the cuffs and chains that held her in place. She didn’t move, save a slight twitch of her right hand.

Phasma stepped into the room, and gave her salute to General Hux. His hair was slightly disheveled from its normally organized state, and she surveyed the room quickly while still keeping the majority of her attention on the man before her.

He had turned slightly to register who had entered, and while his body had relaxed slightly when he saw who it was, he still seemed pretty pissed off at the intrusion. “Captain Phasma,” he acknowledged, saluting her back. There was a slight bite to his words. She returned to a more at ease stance; nothing she wasn’t used to, especially when he was in one of his _own_ moods.

With his acknowledgement, she turned her eyes to the scene before her. Hux had lowered his switch momentarily, one hand running through his hair to fix whatever state of disarray it was in. A few smears of blood were left behind, but he didn’t seem to notice. “How is the interrogation coming, sir?” She began, and he cast a glare of his own at her. He did not offer her an answer at that point.

Stepping forward into the room, she approached the table where the girl was chained. Her form was slumped forward against the metal before her. The chains and cuffs that held her arms in place were the only thing keeping her from sliding off the angled table.

Phasma stuck her gloved hand to the girl’s leather-bound wrist, and was relatively surprised to feel a strong pulse beating beneath the skin there. Withdrawing her hand, she took hold of the hood that had loosened itself in her beating. Pulling it back, she had to pause so as to not appear as surprised by what she saw before her as she actually was.

Aside from the nasty bruise that was already making itself known on the side of the girls face, her skin was practically radiating a golden-white light. It was soft in form – not painful to look at (eerily calming in all reality) but RJ-9890’s words of the lightbulb in the dark filtered back to her now, and she realized exactly how easy it must have been to find this girl on the dark side of Gorse. _‘How ironic of a place to be born,’_ she mused momentarily, before turning to look at Hux.

“Have you taken a good look at our prisoner, General?” His eyes narrowed as he approached the mess of white-blonde hair that had spilled out from beneath the hood. He wouldn’t admit that he _hadn’t_ , in fact, taken the time to really look at her. He didn’t think something like that would matter. In fact, his mind had been rather preoccupied with the antics of a certain Knight of Ren lately – the student of Supreme Leader Snoke had the General quite pissed off, what with all the damages he was causing everywhere he went. He’d half taken some of his frustration out on the black-cloaked girl before him. It was part of the reason he hadn’t even bothered to strip her cloak from her.

Taking a fistful of blonde hair, he pulled her head back from the table and nearly dropped it right back to where it had previously laid as his eyes realized exactly what her skin was doing. But his fingers had held tight, and he examined her for a moment – the way the cut on her eyebrow was turning _silver_ in the light before his very eyes, the way her skin seemed to glow with a light that he couldn’t quite understand. Finally letting her head rest against the table, he let his hold of her hair go. Some of her own blood had matted where his hand had been, and it was then that he realized the sticky red substance was on his gloves.

He took the whip in his hand for a moment, and examined just how much of her blood was soaking into the leather, before tossing it to the side. His hands found the fabric of her hooded cape, and he made quick work of pulling it from her body and tossing it to where the whip now lay.

Blue eyes assessed the damage he had done to the skin beneath. Her cape and shirt had taken some of the force of his blows, but clearly not enough of it. There were nasty looking red lines crossing all over her shoulder blades and back – some had even gone so far as the backsides of her upper arms. It looked like something had sunk its teeth into her skin over and over again. Her clothes were obviously ruined.

But what he focused on the most was not the sheer amount of damage he had done, nor was it the fresh and dried blood caked to her back. No, he had done worse. Much worse, before. What he focused on this time was the way her skin was _already_  beginning to knit itself back together. Some of the earliest lashes had already seemed to fuse shut, a jagged silver scar running across her faintly glowing skin. A silver scar that seemed to almost shine under the lights above, much the same as the smaller one on her face.

General Hux stepped back from the girl on the table before him – Thea, he thought he had heard Lieutenant Colonel O’Daug mention that that was what her name was when the man had summoned him, clearly frustrated himself.

Phasma was watching him. She’d seen exactly what he’d seen, and was calmly waiting for him to assess the situation. He seemed to be coming to much the same conclusion that Phasma had not more than fifteen minutes earlier.

“Captain Phasma, please have some of your men take our _guest_ here to the medi-bay – have her sedated and cleaned. Once her wounds are clean, have her transported to a medical holding cell or put on lockdown. Make sure she remains chained. I have something I must attend to immediately.”

“Sir,” she said, her helmet nodding in acknowledgement.

With that, General Hux left the interrogation room, his footfalls sounding swiftly against the floor.

“You two out there,” Phasma began, signaling to the Stormtroopers outside of the door. “We need to get the prisoner to the medi-bay.” The two Stormtroopers entered the room, and began setting about unchaining the girl from the table. It was clear that she had passed out in the way that her body seemed almost like dead weight as the two carried her between them.

Phasma knew not whether she had passed out from pain or blood loss, but she certainly wasn’t going to let the girl die on her watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, I totally have noooo idea if they'd have light bulbs as we think of them, so just... humor me, okay? lololol
> 
> Anyway, did you guess who was coming into the room correctly last time? :D It wasn't our resident emo-overlord, but we shall be seeing him around the corner sooner than later. ;) 
> 
> As for our next update, expect it within a week, as usual. I shall be hanging out with friends again this Saturday before unwinding at my friends place for a continuation of our drinking games from last weekend, before hiking on Sunday. So I don't know if I'll be able to get you all anything earlier than that, buuuuut I will certainly try if I can~ If not, expect an update next Wednesday. 
> 
> <3


	6. Statistical Anomaly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, as promised, one week later~ 
> 
> As always, thank you so much to all of you who have given Kudos, left comments, bookmarked, or subscribed to this story~ Thank you, also, to all my silent readers :3 I love you all. 
> 
> Special thanks to Spartaingirl197, Dasha, and FollowYourBliss for their comments on the previous chapter~ <3 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy~~

General Hux had tugged the sticky gloves from his hands before he’d managed to reach anything he’d have to actually touch. Finally reaching his quarters, he stuffed them down the laundry chute within the wall before moving rapidly to the small office he also had in the back of his rooms. It was not his normal office where he normally did his work, but a much smaller personal office. Within, there were two bookshelves filled with printed copies of many old tomes from decades, centuries, millennia past.

Books of this nature were a rarity in themselves, but Hux didn’t seem to be caring much about how he treated them in that moment. Pulling one hefty volume from the shelf, he dropped it rather gracelessly onto his desk before he began to flip rapidly through the pages.

He did not find exactly what he wanted, but a clue to what he thought he was searching for. Pulling out a manuscript of old writings, he finally pinpointed the location of what he was searching for.

Certain now of what he had seen, and who he thought they held in their medi-bay at that very moment, he couldn’t help the grin that spread across his pale features.

“The girl who danced upon a thousand suns,” he began, eyes drinking up everything on the subsequent pages. There were whispers here and there about her, but it seemed to him that all the writings ascertained that she was more of a legend than anything. Except for one, perhaps, but even this writer supposed that her appearance would have to be a statistical anomaly. A girl made of starlight; the light of a thousand stars given human form. Hux was never one to idly give into such frivolity as legends and lore, but from what he’d seen, he figured this was something that even he himself could not so easily ignore or deny. He certainly didn’t fully understand it, either.

So who might?

The answer was blatantly obvious, and the General excused himself from the small office to clean himself of the blood that had somehow found its way onto his uniform – and his hair, he realized once he’d gotten into the shower – before meeting with the Supreme Leader himself.

And if she wasn’t who he thought she might be, he mused, he’d have just as much fun whipping the life right out of her for causing him such a commotion.

But the promise that he’d read of “immeasurable power” and the promise of thousands of lives of knowledge – that phrase he kept repeating to himself over and over again – had him almost hoping that it wouldn’t come to that.

 

* * *

 

 

Hux was staring at the floor below his foot, form bowed in reverence to the Supreme Leader.

“General Hux…”

The General picked himself from his lowered position to stand at his full height. But even his full height was nothing in comparison to the large hologram of Snoke that sat before him. “Why have you called upon me…” It wasn’t exactly phrased as a question; almost like he was asking out of formality, but already knew the answer.

“Supreme Leader, our troops acquired what we believed to be a Resistance Spy upon Gorse just shy of 36 hours ago.” Snoke was watching him, silently assessing his words. “Upon interrogation, it was noticed that she was not like any other Resistance member, or anyone else for that matter, that I have interrogated before.”

Snoke seemed interested, but Hux was not sure if that was more for his own benefit, or just a show. He had a sinking suspicion from the look in the Supreme Leaders eyes that he already knew everything.

“General Hux, what exactly do you mean by this?”

“Supreme Leader, I have reason to believe that the girl we found on Gorse may be… a _statistical anomaly_ within our universe. There are things about her physiology that do not hold true for any human in existence, and I find that even you, Supreme Leader, would agree…” He’d pressed his lips together in a thin line after speaking, Snoke’s eyes turning on him.

“General Hux, I have reason to believe that you are correct.”

If Hux wasn’t so trained in diplomacy, he might have appeared slightly taken aback. Even if there had been a flash of uncertainty across his face, it was tucked behind his own metaphorical mask once more, his face retaining its cool and collected composure.

“General Hux,” Snoke began again. “Tell me, why is the girl not present with you for my own inspection?”

Hux nearly flinched at the words. “Forgive me, Supreme Leader, but it appears that in her _reluctance_ to release the information I sought from her, she was _temporarily_ unable to handle my… interrogation tactics.”

Supreme Leader Snoke seemed to be musing over this information, before he finally spoke. “I know also of what you speak – I could feel the disturbance in the very seams of the universe.” Hux’s eyes snapped to the Supreme Leaders feet as a wave of nausea settled into his stomach before he was finally able to look up at the Supreme Leader again, once the feeling had passed. “Her power, her energy, surged and cried out. I felt it, even so far from its source. But I knew.”

“If I had known, Supreme Leader--“

“It is of little consequence now.” His voice boomed slightly in the hall, and Hux became silent once more. “Be grateful that some had more sense than you in this situation.”

Hux’s eyes snapped back up to regard the shrunken and scarred face of Snoke once more, before they finally settled on the floor. He remained silent, the only indication that he was angered or upset was the clenching of his jaw.

Snoke spoke once more. His words were finite. “See to it that she does not die due to your mistake. I will need to see her for my own two eyes as soon as she wakes.”

And with that, Hux was dismissed from his presence before the hologram of the Supreme Leader disappeared from the room altogether.

 

* * *

 

 

_Thea felt like she was watching herself on a screen, again._

_Why did it always come back to this?_

_Her eyes focused on the form before her – a girl, about 17 years of age, stared back at her. She had pretty, long brown hair that curled in impossibly smooth ringlets. Thin lips, turned slightly up in the very corners of her mouth. Piercing green-gold eyes stared back at her. Her skin was almond in color, with a light dusting of freckles across her nose. And her skin glowed with a subdued light; it was unmistakably her, unmistakably Thea... or rather, another face that housed the very same soul._

_But it was a face unlike her own._

_Even still, Thea recognized it all the same. She recognized all of them, every single last one of them. All of the faces of past seemed to flash before her eyes in an instant at the thought, before she was brought back to this memory once more._

_The green-gold eyes before her turned away from her, following the line of someone else in the room. It was only then that Thea recognized that she was seeing this through the eyes of her former face – the mirror before her also turned away at the same time, and Thea caught sight of the other figure in the room._

_“_ _Dalla…” She watched as the other girls lips moved, pretty face forming into a sneer._

_A voice spoke in the room; one that Thea recognized as her own. “Themma. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Sarcasm dripped from every word._

_Thea, or rather Dalla, moved from the sink she’d been leaning against, arms coming to rest on her hips. Themma only glared back at her. Thea watched as her former self assessed Themma, who stood on the other side of the room from her._

_They were in a locker room of sorts, and Thea found herself struggling within to shout out to her former self to run, to get the **hell** out of there. She remembered what was coming next, but her former self – Dalla – really didn’t know. _

_“You know, Dalla, my father is rather… **upset** with the way your father... snubbed him at the Emperors gala last week. He’s cost our family so much. **So. Very. Much.** ” _

_Dalla only smirked, clearly showing her lack of care about all of it. She knew what Themma was getting at – a few comments had been made by her own father about the Senator that had ended up costing him his position. Now he was being demoted to a position in the Ministry of Agriculture due to some information that Dalla’s own father had passed along to the Emperor._

_Themma had moved forward slightly into the room, pausing about ten feet before her. “This is essentially a death sentence for my social life. For our families fortune. The Ministry of Agriculture holds no weight in the political spectrum. And we will **rot** in our social standing while you continue to rise above all of us.” _

_Dalla’s smirk only grew as she watched angry tears well in the eyes of Themma across the way. “What a… pity.”_

_“_ _How **dare** you!” The other girl almost shrieked, fists clenched at her sides. “You cannot speak to me in such a condescending way! There is nothing **special** about you!” _

_“Oh but there is, dear Themma. Don’t you remember what the Emperor himself said to my father? ‘She will bring you great luck, Tinius. Keep her close.’ If the Emperor himself says it--“_

_“Curse the Emperor!” Themma spat out, hate filling her gaze as it rested on Dalla. She’d stilled her tears, and an eerie calm seemed to wash over her._

_“_ _…That sort of talk is **treason** , Themma. Watch your tongue.” Dalla shifted slightly, eyeing the doorway behind the other girl. _

_Themma was watching her, and when she finally spoke, her voice had a strange sound to it. Something Dalla couldn’t quite place. But Thea knew it now, and she begged her former self to make a run for the door before it was too late. But all she could do was watch as everything unfolded, through the green-gold eyes of one of her faces of past._

_“Maybe the Emperor was right…”_

_“Of course he was right!” Dalla began, back stiffening. “And soon, I won’t have to attend this academy with the rest of the other Senators children. And certainly without the offspring of the Minister of **Agriculture**.” Themma’s stare once more filled with a cold hate at Dalla’s words. “No, I’ll be attending the private academy on the grounds of the Imperial Estate itself, alongside others who are **truly** worthy of my companionship.” _

_A silence settled over the two girls, and Dalla begin to feel the tendrils of worry creep into her mind. Something suddenly didn’t feel right. Themma was staring back at her, expression eerily calm from her outburst only moments before._

_“Certainly,” she began, a small smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth. “You won’t be attending this academy any longer. **That** is for sure…” _

_There was something in Themma’s eyes, and Thea already knew what it was. But Dalla was only just on her way to figuring it out._

_There was an anger. And the other girls gaze was malicious._

_Murderous._

_The breath caught in Dalla’s lungs, before her muscles sprang into action and she made a break for the door. But the other girl was fast, and had shot a leg out, sending Dalla crashing to the metal floor with a cry of surprise._

_There were more footsteps against the floor as Dalla struggled to stand, the fall having momentarily winded her. But arms – strong arms – were grabbing her upper arms and hoisting her to her feet before finally dragging her backwards._

_Thea wished she could pull back from the memory, mind numb as she felt the harsh bite of rope as it was wrapped around Dalla’s – around **her** – neck, around her wrists. _

_Themma was staring at her from the same spot she had been standing at, seemingly pleased with the way things were unfolding. In her eyes, there was a victory._

_“_ _No, the Emperor was right with what he said to your father. He should have kept you close…”_

_One of the men – one of Themma’s servants, probably – that was holding her arms behind her was then throwing the other end of the rope up and around the metal crisscrossing rafters in the ceiling. Dalla made to cry out as Themma approached her, but a rough hand covered her mouth before the sound could reach its fever pitch._

_Themma was withdrawing something from within her uniform pocket, and Dalla’s eyes widened upon noting the light-pen in her hand. They were used in the engineering classes on campus, and an unfortunate student or two managed to burn their skin with them every year._

_Themma clicked a button on the side, and the tip of the pen ignited, a small concentration of energy pulsing at the very end. She grabbed hold of Dalla’s uniform blouse, and gave a hard tug, the shit effectively tearing open to expose the other girl’s stomach. And Themma was upon her then, scrawling something across Dalla’s midsection as the other girl screamed in pain below the callused hand that held her mouth closed._

_It felt like an eternity before the girl before her seemed satisfied with her handiwork. Stepping back, she admired the sobbing mess of a girl who had once stood so proud before her. Then, she nodded to the man who held the other end of the rope in his hands. “String her up, then.”_

_There was a sharp tugging against her throat, and any protest or cry ceased immediately as the tugging turned to a full on crushing sensation. Her lungs burned with a need for air, but none would come to her and she could feel herself gagging as her legs kicked out, touching nothing. She wanted to desperately grab at the rope cutting into her neck but couldn’t, arms burning as she tried to pull her wrists free from the restraints behind her back._

_The world was growing black against her vision, and the blood trapped in her face felt like it was pounding behind her skin. She thought she could hear Themma laughing before her, but for all she knew, it was just the hallucinations of her oxygen-deprived mind._

_It wasn’t long before the girl with almond skin and fierce green-gold eyes ceased her struggling all together, and she was cut down from her place in the rafters to be left strewn against the locker room floor for some poor unfortunate soul to find, the words ‘you should have kept her close’ burned and blackened into her skin. Death had come for her, and with Him, ‘IT’ had come as well, openly offering her His outstretched hand as her soul made the transition from this life to the place between existences. _

_The memory had faded as her dying mind had as well, and Thea was left once again in the darkness of her mind, screaming against the blackness that surrounded her._

_So much pain, so much grief. Too many lives of it. Too many… Far too many. Her mind whirled with the agony of her thoughts. Why was it always this? Why did it always come back to this? To the pain, to pain of human existence…_

_Why did these memories haunt her so? Was all of this a premonition of what was to come? Was this - torture, murder, death - how it was always going to be?_

_Thea curled in on herself, into the darkness of her mind, and she wept._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for taking the time to read! 
> 
> As always, please expect an update within a week. You might get lucky and get something earlier because I'm being RESPONSIBLE this weekend and staying home to work on homework (except for I might go see Star Wars in 3D for a 3rd time LOL). Buuuuut no promises - it all depends on whether or not I get another chapter prewritten to make sure I stay ahead in my writing. I'm being a responsible author and making sure I keep a buffer lololol 
> 
> Anyway, again, thanks for the read~ Feel free to leave me some thoughts or just like, ask me what my favorite color is idk


	7. Dragged Into The Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Here's the next installment! 
> 
> As a heads up, I'm just going to mention here that if you are like SUPER DEATHLY AFRAID OF NEEDLES to the point that you can't even read about someone having their blood drawn (even briefly), just note that this chapter does contain mentions of needles (very very briefly, and not really in super great detail either) after the divisional line. Tread cautiously, I suppose. 
> 
> ANYWAY!  
> I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of you who read this story, who have given me Kudos, who have commented, subscribed, and bookmarked~ You're the very best and you all encourage me to keep writing ~~and ignore all my homework for the sake of writing~~ (ahaha just kidding about that last part... sort of... heh)
> 
> Special thanks to the lovely iKanameBelievesInMoriarty for all of the absolutely wonderful comments and love~ <3 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this chapter!

Thea noticed the soft texture of a pillow below her head before she noticed anything else. The world around her seemed to bleed back into some sense of consciousness, as the blonde woman blinked her eyes in a sort of hazy desperation to see properly again.

Her vision was blurry for a few minutes more, before finally she could see. The first thing her eyes focused on was her right wrist, cuffed to whatever she was laying on. When she attempted to raise her form from what she assumed was a bed under her, she instantly recoiled to her original position. Hissing out in pain, she tried her best to not let her body react by scrunching up; it was the last thing that her sore back needed. The feeling of pins and needles and an ever present _burning_ sensation blanketed her back.

In an instant, all of what had occurred previously flooded back to her brain. Pulling at the cuffs against the bed, she tried to free herself from them, but found herself unable to. Thea’s spirits dropped, and her head followed in fashion, resting once more against the pillow below. Her eyes unfocused briefly as she stared at the wall and wondered where she was and why she was there. Her view was limited from her position on her stomach, but when she finally gathered more strength and willpower, she turned her head about her as best as she could to assess her location.

 _‘So, I’m in some sort of medical bay, then…’_ she thought, wondering then why they would bring her to such a place if they were holding her prisoner. Were the men dressed in black from the First Order going to heal her so they could continue to torture her?

She instantly felt betrayed once more, as her mind drew back to how she’d gotten to be in this situation. Where had Death been, when she had been so willing to give herself over to Him? Where had ‘IT’ been when she wished to be carried on to her next life? _**Why** was she still here?_

A pair of footsteps – a males, she guessed, from the way the gait hit heavy against the metal floor – were making their way into the room. Thea immediately tensed up, face flinching at the way the motion caused a surge of pain to radiate out from the skin on her back.

The footfalls stopped at the foot of her bed, where she could not see the intruder. They seemed to remain there for a while, and she tried her best to even her breathing out. Maybe if they thought she was sleeping they would lea--

“It is nice to see that you are still among the land of the living.”

She could instantly feel her skin crawl at the sound of his voice. She’d have recognized that voice anywhere, if only for the relationship it held with the vicious whipping she’d received from him. _‘General Hux’_ , she thought with a shudder. Hux grinned when he saw the quake that ran through her body.

“You certainly can take a beating, girl.”

Hux’s footsteps around the side of the bed sent a wave of nausea through her petite form.

But the actual feeling of his leather-gloved fingertips tracing a line upwards against the bare skin of her side had Thea almost vomiting. She had to clamp her mouth shut to make sure she didn’t puke all over herself. If there had been even a _scrap_ of food within her, she knew she would not have been able to hold it back.

Her mind was in a blind panic as the fingertips of his gloves ghosted against her skin. Hux’s eyes traveled the surface of her totally exposed back, taking in all the now-silver lash marks that marred the light glow her skin emitted. His greed only surged slightly more at the sight – it was a shame, he thought for only a moment, that she could not be in the same position on her back. He would have liked to inspect her further. There were no romantic feelings present within his heart – no, only thoughts of fully possessing something so potentially powerful in every possible way briefly filled his mind.

Thea squeezed her eyes shut as tight as she could, mind racing a thousand miles a minute, trying to think of some way to keep this vile man’s hands from her body. His fingers ghosting ever upward on her side were leaving goosebumps in their wake, the feel of the leather cold against her skin, and she felt immediately violated by his foul touch. As they reached the underside of the swell of her breast – pressed below her frame against the bed she lay in – she spoke the first words that came to her mind. _Anything_ to get him to stop.

“I don’t know anything about a Resistance base.”

The General’s hand was flying into her hair in a fury, taking a fistful of the blonde locks and yanking back on them painfully, forcing her to look at his face. She finally caught the first glimpse of the man who had already emotionally and physically abused her within two meetings.

“What did you say?” His voice was not the only part of his features full of rage – his eyes held a spite for her that was nowhere near disguised. Those eyes were full of all sorts of things. They were all things that Thea had seen in the eyes of captors before, but never before had they terrified her so.

Never before had Death denied her, and these two things in tandem with one another – the cruelty in his eyes and her own inability to just drift away – terrified her most of all. Even still, she spoke, voice shaking from a hearty mix of pain and fear.

“If you came here to ask me again, I don’t know anything about a Resistance base.”

Hux pushed her head away from his hand, dropping his hold on her hair as he did so. Her face landed back against the pillow, and a stinging sensation started in her eyes as she smacked her nose slightly against the bed below – she was immediately thankful of the position she was in that had probably saved her from a broken nose.

“Despicable filth.” His voice was raised, though he hadn’t quite shouted at her. She could hear the contempt for her in his voice, all the same. Her head turned to watch him, eyes locking with the back of his uniform. His shoulders seemed to heave for a moment before he straightened his form, body visibly relaxing. He turned to face her in one swift motion then – she locked her eyes with his own ice blue ones, hating the sick sense of joy he seemed to hold there.

“No, I don’t think we’ll be pursing that path again, I’m afraid.” His eyes roamed over her back, and the faint look of disappointment in his eyes (at apparently no longer being able to beat Thea within an inch of her life, no doubt) made the girl shudder. He quickly lost that look in his eyes though, the glint of some new-found treasure trove spread before him returning. “No, you will be used in the only way befitting someone of your… circumstances.” His gaze flicked to meet her eyes, and she hated what she saw within those blue depths, before they were hidden away behind a mask of indifference. “I will return for you in three days.” And then, Hux left, without so much as a glance back in her direction.

The promise in those words almost stopped Thea’s heart.

 

* * *

 

 

Three days came and went too quickly for her tastes. The doctor who had been assigned to treat and heal her – a young, auburn haired woman named Mazli – was rather pleasant to be around. The young blonde had found some sort of comfort aboard, but the agony of knowing that Hux would come back for her was slowly eating away at her on the inside.

There wasn’t much comfort on the matter that Mazli could offer to Thea, and she understood why. The doctor was contracted to the First Order – it probably went against directive, or something. “I’m sure you are anxious for nothing. You are alive, are you not?” Thea had nodded, and watched the look that the other woman seemed to want to hide away. She didn’t press the matter – she hated seeing pity on the face of others, directed towards herself. Thea changed the topics from her own worry to less heavy matters. Mazli’s questions were innocent enough, and she shared rather openly when Thea would direct the woman’s questions back at her.

“Where were _you_ born, then?” Thea had pressed Mazli about the topic, watching the reminiscent smile grace the other young woman’s face as she ran an antiseptic cloth along Thea’s inner elbow. Thea had only just finished explaining the finer points of what it was like to live in perpetual humid darkness as the young doctor had begun to take a blood sample to test for any non-visible signs of infection.

“I was born on Haidoral Prime; my father was Brigadier General Tarmonel,” Mazli spoke, pricking Thea’s skin with the needle. The slightly younger woman flinched at the sharp intrusion but tried her best to ignore the odd feeling of loss that seemed to center around the syringe, and instead concentrate on what Mazli had just said. The name she’d said didn’t mean anything to Thea, but she nodded anyway. “I think it was his influence that got me into medical school. I thank him every day for his position, else I wouldn’t have mine, rest his soul.” Thea frowned slightly, and offered her own simple condolences. “Oh don’t worry, he passed a long time ago. I accepted it when it happened. Such is life.”

Thea had known for a while now that she liked the young doctor, but her mannerisms and approach to life only solidified that in her further. The other woman removed the needle before adhering a piece of gauze to where she’d just taken blood, telling Thea to ‘hold that there for a minute’. Then she set about checking the scarring on her back. “You said you were from _Gorse_ , right?”

Thea hummed in response, flinching every so often when light pressure was applied to one particular laceration that had not totally fused back together. “These are so strange…” the other woman had muttered, more or less to herself. Then, directing her voice at Thea, she spoke again. Her words weren’t really begging for any responses, and so Thea only listened quietly. “You tell me that you’re a full human, and looking at you and your scans I’d never argue it. But I’ve never seen something like this before. It just boggles my mind… Who’d have thought I’d have such an opportunity… _Silver_ …”

She had begun to mutter again, and Thea chose to remain silent.

Thea had realized at quite a young age that anytime she’d received a cut, the wound had fused shut in a thin silver line. She had also realized, much to the discomfort of her mother, that her skin healed at an exceptionally fast rate. But of course, heightened cell regeneration meant more chance of scarring, as her skin didn’t necessarily have the chance to ‘catch up’ with and move along with all the regrowth. She’d known, twisting in an awkward position to view her back in the single mirror in the bathroom of the medical ward on one of the occasions she had used the facilities that these scars given to her by General Hux were not going to be fading anytime soon, if they ever would.

She’d hated him more than anything for it.

The blonde was actually slightly surprised that Mazli had not said anything about the way her skin _glowed_ , though.

But she assumed it probably had something to do with the bright white lights in the room that never seemed to turn off. She was amazed that she had managed to sleep at all over the past three days.

Mazli was excusing herself not terribly long afterward, leaving Thea to eat her lunch in peace. The first time food had been delivered to her, she’d devoured it in no time at all, ravenous from a few days without sustenance. Then, her stomach had promptly evacuated it all right back the way it had come, angry at her for how quickly she’d scarfed it all down. She’d learned her lesson from that. Now she stared idly at the wall as she ate the rather bland dish, wondering what was to become of her.

Before Thea could debate any longer about what her fate was to be, she heard the distinct sound of footfalls against the metal floor outside of the medi-bay doors. She had to will the food she had just consumed to stay down when she saw General Hux’s frame in the doorway.

He’d smirked at her, ushering in a Stromtrooper that tossed what Thea imagined where clothes on the bed next to her. “Time to get dressed in something more appropriate than a medical gown, _Thea_.” The way her name sounded on his tongue felt so wrong. Hux’s smirk grew at the way she stiffened when he’d said her name.

“We will be leaving momentarily. Do not dawdle, or the consequences will be most severe.” Mazli had stepped out of her office, and acknowledged the General appropriately. He’d nodded at her, as she ushered Thea out of bed, momentarily removing the single cuff that kept her attached to the bed. She took the clothes with her as she walked, explaining that she would help Thea to dress.

It was only a matter of five minutes or less, and Thea was emerging from the back room, clad in all black. She felt semi-comfortable then, used to cloaking herself in black from head to toe. What she wasn’t used to was how _tight_ the clothes were – not uncomfortably so, but rather… distasteful, she thought. They didn’t leave much to the imagination in the way of body shape, but they at least moved well with her.

She wished that the top had long sleeves, because she still felt rather exposed with her skin so visible. That, and cold. This whole place was rather chilly, if Thea was being honest with herself.

Hux caught sight of her; the small self-satisfied grin that ghosted his features before disappearing once more made her stomach flip uncomfortably. She nervously touched the chain that remained around her neck – the only connection to her previous life that she still wore – just to make sure it (and the small sun-shaped crystal it was attached to) were still where they had been for the past three years. Reassured by its presence, she made sure the crystal was still tucked securely into the top.

He signaled to five other Stormtroopers that were on the other side of the door to enter, and Thea wondered briefly why anyone would need an escort of six Stormtroopers. One of them was clicking a pair of cuffs into place around her wrists, before poking her with the butt end of his blaster to get her to move forward. She cast one last glance back at Mazli, who shot her an encouraging smile, before she was ushered out of the room.

She vaguely hoped that she would get a chance to see the doctor again, but she wasn’t going to hold her breath.

Her bare feet were cold against the metal of the floor upon which she walked. She wondered why they had not given her shoes, but doubted that Hux wanted to hear _anything_ out of her. So she remained silent the whole trip, following behind the General and two white Stormtroopers, while four remained at her flank, no doubt pointing blasters at her should she try anything.

The group of eight walked for what Thea felt like was forever. She’d tried memorizing the route that they had taken, but everything sort of looked the same… Well, at least, up until this particular hallway. There was feeling vibrating from deep within, and the Stormtroopers themselves seemed on edge – that much was clear. But Hux kept walking with confidence towards a rather large set of doors ahead, and Thea could feel herself slowing at the heaviness in the air, and the impending feeling of doom welling up inside of her chest.

One of the Stormtroopers behind her pushed her slightly with the butt of his blaster to keep her walking and she stumbled before keeping pace once more. Finally before the doors, Hux signaled to the Stormtroopers to wait outside. They scattered to the sides of the door, clearly not wanting to be in front when they opened. Thea had turned slightly away from the door before her, eyebrows knit together in confusion at just how quickly the Stormtroopers had scattered to the side. But before she'd even had the chance to consider why they seemed so eager to get out of the way, the door was sliding open.

Hux grabbed hold of Thea by one of her wrists that was clasped behind her back, and roughly dragged her into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow Hux ended up being a little creepier than I originally intended for him to be but OH WELL DEAL WITH IT~ ;D
> 
> Anywho I'll be going to Kyoto and Osaka this extended-holiday-weekend for the first day of spring. I don't know what kind of time I'll have to write, but I have 2 and a half chapters finished and waiting in the wings for their regularly scheduled posting dates. I WILL NOT be posting an extra chapter this weekend, no matter how much I want to D: But I will be attempting to get some more writing done, around the writing that _needs_ to get done for my final Psychology paper of my undergrad psych career.
> 
> So, expect the regularly scheduled update next Wednesday~ As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!  
> Much love to all~!


	8. Seeing Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter, as promised~ 
> 
> A special thank you to all of my readers out there - all of you who comment, subscribed, bookmarked, left Kudos, or are just silently reading~ Without you all, I'd just be talking to myself haha xD  
> Special thanks to iKanameBelievesInMoriarty for her lovely comments on the last chapter~ 
> 
> PS: I just MIGHT have been writing this chapter to “The Force Awakens (Star Wars Trap Anthem)” by Jason Edward & Thesia, and “Star Wars Trap Mix 2015 [Bass Boosted]” by Bass Boost Everything… Just maybe

Kylo Ren could feel the call from Snoke within his mind, and he was not surprised to feel it when he did. He had been submerged in his meditation routine, trying to center himself within the Dark, when he’d felt a surge of power, of pure radiating energy, from somewhere in the base. It had flared and dulled, before flaring somewhere near forty or fifty times. He’d been momentarily shaken from each flare, before his mind had been consumed with annoyance and anger, wondering what was going on under his nose that he didn’t know about.

He would have followed the power flares right to their source if they hadn’t stopped just as suddenly as they’d started.

So he’d returned to his position on the mats in front of the large window that overlooked the expanse of snow. Beginning to center himself again, he’d reached out with the Force, seeing if he could find the cause of the fluctuations of raw energy. The energy had felt so foreign to him, though it’d left him feeling oddly rejuvenated. He was downright confused by the suddenness of it all. But he’d felt nothing in his search; almost as if it hadn’t happened at all.

The slight tingling that he could feel in the air around him was the only indication that he hadn’t imagined it.

It was during this meditational search that he’d felt Snoke call out for him. The Knight had donned his helmet and made his way to the large room within the belly of the base that housed the towering hologram of his Master.

“Kylo Ren…” The voice of Snoke spoke to him upon his entrance to the room.

He’d stopped before the towering hologram. “You called upon me?”

Snoke seemed to regard him for a moment, before speaking. “Have you felt them? Those surges in power?”

Kylo was momentarily taken aback, but from his posture and stance no one would know other than him. Snoke had felt the same fluctuations? He was so far away, and Kylo was certain that they had come from the base.

“I have.” His voice sounded rather robotic behind the modulator in his helmet. He was already trying to ascertain why Snoke had felt them as well, but he had his own silent theories.

“What did you make of them?”

Kylo was quiet for a while, before he finally spoke. “I… did not know what to make of them.”

Snoke seemed to mull his honesty over momentarily, before he leaned forward slightly in his chair to regard Kylo. “There are writings in the oldest of Sith lore; there are writings that date back even further than that, whispers in the oldest memories of this universe…” He seemed to be thinking for a moment, considering his next words, as he returned back to his normal posture upon his throne. Kylo watched him, all the while his mind attempted to process this information. “General Hux approached me just before I summoned you. He has… acquired a girl who he believes fits the nature of these tales. The surges in energy lead me to the conclusion that it is not all inside of the General’s mind.”

Kylo remained silent, absorbing the meaning behind the words.

“Kylo, should this girl prove legitimate, she will be a powerful tool to utilize in your training.” The unspoken _‘and in your quest for power’_ hung in the air between them.

“What do you require of me?”

Snoke was quiet for a few moments, analyzing his student before him. “I will call upon you again within the week. Your _assistance_ at determining her legitimacy might be required, although I have little doubt within my own mind...”

With that, the conversation was over, and Kylo Ren was returning to his chambers to meditate, and try not to mull over the information that had just been dumped into his lap. But the briefest of thoughts on the matter still flashed within his mind – if Snoke had felt the coils and lashes of energy, did that mean others had as well?

 

* * *

 

 

Thea had struggled momentarily against the General’s grip on her arm – fingers biting rather harshly into her skin as he pulled her along – but the sheer size of the room stilled her struggles as her eyes turned all around her, trying to take the massive hall in.

And that’s when she’d felt it. Her eyes snapped in the direction that Hux was effectively dragging her in, searching for _something_ in the dark. Something full of power, something full of _anger_. It was suffocating, pressing in on her. She’d never felt anything like it before in her life. But she couldn’t see anything in the damned blackness of the room – how was Hux even navigating to _anywhere_ without falling on his face?

Halfway to their destination, though, a massive hologram materialized in the room before them and Thea’s legs immediately stilled in fear of the appearance. But Hux would have none of it, and he dragged her harshly forward once more. She struggled more against his vice-like grip, wishing her arms weren’t cuffed behind her back, but the redheaded man just drug her forward towards the towering hologram at a faster pace.

The General had forcefully pulled her up two small steps onto a circular platform. Before she’d realized what was happening, Hux was whipping his arm forward harshly, sending Thea stumbling forward ahead of him before crashing rather unceremoniously to the floor before him. Somehow she’d managed to land on her side rather than her face, but lay unmoving for a moment a short distance away from the stairs that led up to the large hologram in front of her.

Finally having gathered her senses about her, Thea whipped her head to face Hux who stood not ten feet from where she lay on the floor, eyes downcast in his own reverence. A glare was shot his way before her eyes registered the black mass of robes standing beside him.

Every hair on her body felt like it was standing on end at the sight.

She knew then the source of the power and anger that seemed to roll over her in waves. Though there was no way to know exactly whether the mask upon the rather tall individuals head was looking _directly_ at her or not, Thea could just _feel_ the eyes trained on her form. It completely unnerved her and sucked her in all at the same time. She was only able to turn her eyes away at the sound of Hux’s voice, addressing the hologram before them.

“Supreme Leader, I have brought the girl, as requested.” Hux had a smug little smirk on his face, and Thea couldn’t help the glare that settled into her eyes once more.

“I am aware, General.” The rumbling, gravelly voice that spoke up from behind her head sent its own wave of cold unease through her veins, and Thea turned her head to regard the speaker as she managed to sit upright somewhat.

The face that stared down at her from such a great height was scarred and wrinkled and _old_. Everything about the man sitting in the chair was _old_ , but Thea knew from the way that he was regarding her that he _knew_ … He knew exactly what she was, or at the very least, he was on the verge of figuring it out.

Her blood ran cold for a second time that day.

The Supreme Leader was regarding her, and she dared not look away. His eyes settled on hers for a long while, and she remained silent, unwilling to blink and unwilling to look anywhere else but into those calculating depths. She wasn’t sure if it was a sense of blind confidence that held her there, unmoving, or if it was just pure, unadulterated fear, though she thought it might be the latter.

Finally, after what seemed an entirely too long pause, General Hux was speaking up again. The Supreme Leader turned his attention to the man behind her, and Thea turned her face to the floor, wondering what he had seen in her eyes.

“The girl has obvious physical attributes that mirror the legends of old,” he began, and Thea closed her eyes tight, ignoring whatever else came from his mouth next while wishing that this hadn’t been the reason she was being held – wishing that no one knew.

 _‘But how couldn’t they have known?’_ she mused, the inner voice in her mind speaking in a rather sarcastic tone. Her eyes opened to look down, and she could practically see her own reflection in the polished tiles of the floor on which she crouched. Her slightly blurred image was lightly glowing right back at her.

Hux was still speaking. “Her ability to heal is highly elevated, and her body heals over scar tissue in a silver substance that our doctors are trying to--“

But the figure clothed head to toe in all black, who had stood by so quietly this entire time, was interrupting the pale General. “General Hux, why is it that you know so much about her healing process?” The paleness of the General’s face seemed to increase slightly at the words.

Thea wasn’t sure what she was expecting to hear when this individual spoke, but the deep, crackling, robotic voice that tumbled forward wasn’t it. She guessed from the sound of it that it was a male below the mask. The coldness in the tone sent a shiver down her spine, and she found herself once again openly staring at him.

Hux finally seemed to recover, addressing the Supreme Leader once more. Thea’s face had turned down to regard the floor below her once again; her mind felt a million miles away. But she knew they were talking about her – about how best to use her, probably, she mused – and she could feel her own anger bubbling up inside of her.

The anger was aimed half at the three males in the room, discussing her fate before her like she was some animal who couldn’t understand them… and half directed at Death himself, who had not removed her from having to be placed in this sort of situation in the first place.

It wasn’t that she _wanted_ to die, she thought, eyes glaring down at her own illuminated visage on the tiles below. She just _wished_ that her existence, now, wasn’t going to be laced with pain as she was _used_ for what she was ‘meant for’. From her experiences thus far with the General and one of his underlings, she certainly didn’t expect her ‘meaningfulness’ to be regarded as any reason to treat her as anything other than a pack animal.

Meanwhile, the cloaked figure in black had seemed to tense at the equally angry emotions that were rolling off of the girl in front of him. He could feel the _age_ that was in them – for someone who appeared to have only lived two decades, there was something about her that felt entirely too wise. Entirely too knowing. Entirely too _old_. He had not reached out to touch her thoughts, but he knew he would soon enough. Even still, there was no masking the anger within her. There was a slight flare of curiosity about this angry, glowing girl that began to form within his mind, before he squashed it like a bug.

Snoke was well aware of the thought process of the leader of the Knights of Ren before him. With a wave of his hand, he silenced Hux’s incessant babbling; the redhead tensed but immediately closed his jaw, eyes darting down to regard the girl not too far ahead of him.

“Kylo Ren; you must confirm her legitimacy.”

Thea’s head snapped back towards the cloaked figure, Kylo Ren, who was very clearly gazing upon her this time. The momentary pause between the words that left the Supreme Leaders mouth, and the first step that Kylo Ren took towards her were enough for Thea to remember _why_ she knew that name.

There were enough stories that passed around the planets all over the galaxy for her to know that name anywhere. **_Everyone_** knew that name. And she also knew, or at the very least had an idea, of what he was _capable_ of.

And here he was – Kylo Ren – closing the space between them, that separated him from her.

With a panicked expression in her eyes, the blonde quickly pushed herself backwards across the floor from the black-cloaked man. Her cuffed wrists only made it more difficult to move backwards – she briefly caught the look of pleasure in the General’s eyes as she tried in vain to push herself backwards further from the heavy footfalls of Kylo Ren.

His arm was reaching out towards her then, as her upper body slipped backwards, cuffs roughly digging into one of the healing lacerations on her back. The pain that shot through her system caused a hiss to escape her lips, eyes screwing shut before she had to force them open of her own will, to keep herself on her guard as best as she could around the pain.

Kylo Ren stopped a foot before her as her back met the stairs, effectively ceasing the progression of her backwards retreat. She had nowhere left to go, and she knew it.

And then she was being pressed down roughly into the stairs behind her, her head almost cracking against the tiles at the force of it all. A heavy weight settled on her – it felt like someone was sitting on top of her chest, crushing the air from her lungs. It enveloped her, making it exceedingly harder and harder to breathe.

Before her mind even had a chance to register what was going on, she could feel the push of something against the outer reaches of her conscious thought. It confused her, her face equally reflecting that confusion. But her facial expression quickly changed to one of pain, as she cried out. The dull push that had been dancing around the outside of her mind was so quickly replaced by a sharp stabbing that felt like it was radiating outward from _inside_ her brain. It felt like fingers were pushing into her brain, sharp nails snagging and digging through her mind.

But even as her cry left her mouth, the intrusive feeling in her mind and the weight on her chest were gone, released almost as quickly as they had invaded upon her. It took her a few moments to realize the release, eyes unfocused before refocusing rather sharply on the man cloaked in black before her. His stance didn’t seem as tall as it had before, and she swore she could hear a shuddered heaving breath behind the garbled voice modulator.

As quickly as she had been released, Kylo Ren’s arm was shooting forward once more, that same invisible force slamming her body back down against the stairs behind her twice as hard as before. This time, Thea did crack her head against the stairs, stars in her vision as the pressure and the pain quickly returned at full force.

Kylo Ren was also seeing stars as he dug into her mind. But they weren’t the same type of stars that danced in Thea’s vision from impact. No, these were actual stars – planets and entire solar systems being born in front of his very eyes – blinding light filling his mind, blinding light _filling everything_. It was too much, entirely too much. It was like staring directly into the heart of the sun itself under a microscope and _never looking away_ , everything magnified too greatly. It was too much. Too much. _Too much. **Entirely too much**_.

The pain forced within Thea’s mind was excruciating. Even so, her own howl of pain wasn’t singular in the room – one rather similar in frequency matched the timing of her own almost to the moment it first passed her lips. But this cry of pain was more like a growl of pained anger, and the soulless, inhuman voice behind it could only have come from one person.

Kylo Ren.

The forced invasion of her mind was once again leaving her as instantaneously and as quickly as it had before. Struggling to see behind the white dots that blotted her vision, Thea was able to make out his heaving chest and irregular breathing.

Thea didn’t know how she’d managed to sit up, but the expression she caught on Hux’s face was one of slight bewilderment. He seemed… _much_ more interested in her than he had before, his eyes moving between the Knight of Ren and Thea’s form against the floor. Her eyes turned down to regard herself for a moment, and she noted the way that her skin seemed to be glowing even more than it normally did, if such things were even possible. Part of her brain told her it only _seemed_ this way, due to the traumatic attempted invasion of her mind merely moments before. The younger woman’s chest heaved with labor, trying to pull in as much air as her greedy lungs could take.

The Supreme Leader spoke. “What did you see?”

Kylo Ren had somehow managed to regain his composure, and Thea was floored that he could recover so quickly. But he had not broken his gaze with her. The distorted voice within his helmet spoke its answer. “I saw no thoughts. I could only feel, see the energy within; it… burned my mind and prevented me access.”

Hux was looking damn pleased from the place where his weasely-little-self stood. Kylo stepped forward once more, now within arm’s reach of Thea. She shrunk back from his presence further into the stairs, ignoring the pain in her arms and back as she pressed roughly against both.

His arm reached out towards her again, and she braced herself for another onslaught, screwing her eyes shut tightly in response for what she knew was coming. But it never did.

Instead, the voice of the Supreme Leader spoke again. “That will not be necessary. I have the information I require.” There was a pause. “For now.”

But Kylo did not lower his arm immediately, and Thea opened her eyes slowly to view him. She wondered then if he would listen, or just try to invade her mind once more. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking from behind his mask.

Finally, he turned from her, stalking back to his original place within the room.

The Supreme Leader spoke again after a pregnant pause. “Kylo Ren, you will keep the girl within your presence at all times. I will call upon you again soon to discuss any… matters of importance.” There was another pause, before the Supreme Leader spoke one last time. “Be gone...” And with that, his hologram was fizzling out in the room, leaving the three physical beings alone.

Hux, a dangerous look in his eyes, was grabbing Thea by the upper arm and hauling her to her feet before she even had a moment to start processing what had just happened. His fingers dug roughly into her arm, and she hissed out in pain. Shoving her forward, he guided her roughly from the room and made to turn the corner.

She vaguely registered the two Stormtroopers that fell into step behind them.

Hux continued to push her down the hall, making various turns before he brought her to a halt before a large black door.

He shoved the blonde girl roughly against the wall next to the door. Thea wished that she could have raised her shackled arms to defend herself, but they were pinned rather uncomfortably behind her back. Hux had taken hold of her face with one hand, grip tight and painful, as he glared into her eyes. He seemed to be searching for something within the depths before him – but Thea knew not what it was.

“General Hux.” There was that deep, robotic voice of the Knight of Ren. “Release the girl.”

Hux didn’t move immediately, his hand still clamped around her jaw. His attention held to Thea for what she felt was an unnaturally long amount of time. Finally, he roughly released her face, backing aware from her form with a sneer. “You always get everything, don’t you Ren.” He’d turned his glare to Kylo Ren then, but the black masked man remained silent, unmoving.

With a final glare shot Thea’s way, and a once over that sent her skin crawling all over again, Hux was storming off down the corridor… Which left just the blonde girl and the tall, dark Knight of Ren. She’d lowered her gaze to stare somewhere around his feet, not willing herself to look up into the soulless eyes of his helmet.

Finally, she heard the door to the room open before Kylo stepped through.

“Come,” was all he said, before she felt herself almost dragged into the room against her own will by some invisible hand she could not see, door closing behind her with a hiss to seal her into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me long enough to introduce everyone's favorite emo-buckethead, yeah? xD Oh well, he's here now~
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. It ended up being pretty long in comparison to the others, but I didn't think it would be appropriate to break it in half so I just let you all have it at once xD Anyway, leave your feedback and your love~ 
> 
> Thanks again for reading! Expect an update next Wednesday, as always~ 
> 
> Oh, and Kyoto/Osaka was fucking awesome! :D Feel free to ask me about it if you're dying to know~


	9. Citrine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for tuning in for another installment! Hope you enjoy this chapter~ 
> 
> As always, thanks to:  
> All of my readers, subscribers, kudo-givers, bookmarkers, and commenters - thank you from the bottom of my heart. Its you guys that keep me going always~ 
> 
> Special thanks to my two absolutely amazing commenters from last chapter: iKanameBelievesInMoriarty and BlackGoshawk! :D

The force that drug her into the room was equally as rough as the one that had pushed her down against the stairs in the large chamber only a short time prior.

She didn’t even have a chance to take in where, exactly, she was at before she was being tossed to the ground again – except for this time, it wasn’t a redheaded man doing it. This time, it wasn’t any physical presence doing it, at all.

Thea had been unceremoniously dropped in front of a slate colored couch; she had only enough time to take in that detail of the room she was in before Kylo Ren was baring down on her once again.

His arm was outstretched, and Thea’s body was being pushed backwards against the couch behind her. Her arms were once more pinned behind her in an uncomfortable fashion, except for this time, she could actually feel the loss of circulation in her right arm.

Wincing at the pressure from _nothing_ , she screwed her eyes shut, waiting for the pain to begin once more as the figure in black tried to pry inside of her mind. But no such pain started, and she slowly opened her eyes a crack. He was still there – obviously, the pressure holding her down and preventing her from moving hadn’t subsided. But he was just… _watching_ her.

Thea wasn’t sure then if she would have preferred to have him digging around inside her brain at that moment instead.

The mask trained on her form was wholly unnerving. She wanted to find some scrap of humanity – of an actual living organism – behind the metal. It was so much easier to read the intent of a living thing. But for all she knew, Kylo Ren was a tower of inhuman wires. A creature or machine incapable of feeling sympathy or empathy. Something far more terrifying than a cloaked man in a mask.

The moments that Thea held what she thought was his gaze felt like they stretched off infinitely into utter timelessness. But eventually the pressure upon her chest subsided. Kylo Ren’s arm remained outstretched, and Thea dared not move. She did not break her eye contact (if it could even be called that) with the masked figure. She wouldn't have even been able to bring herself to do so if she tried.

Finally, he dropped his arm.

Without so much as a word, he turned from her and left the room. The door sealed behind him, and she could have sworn she heard the faintest of sounds – a locking mechanism shifting into place, perhaps.

Thea remained in her position on the floor, only shifting after what felt like an eternity to her to return some feeling to her right arm. She remained on the floor for another 45 minutes or so, before she could finally bring herself to stand from her position against the couch.

She was uncertain as she stood. Her mind was running away with a million different thoughts. Would she be able to escape? She toyed with the idea briefly before almost scoffing. What chance did she have of escaping? She didn’t even know where she was. Thea mentally threw the idea out of her mind; even as she did so, though, she was testing her own limits by approaching the door.

Arms still latched behind her back, she pressed on the panel at the side of the door with her elbow, but nothing happened. She laughed silently to herself, a wry smile forming on her lips – why had she even bothered? It wasn’t like they were all going to go through the trouble of finding her just to let her wander around by herself.

Thea contemplated her situation for some time, eyes focused on the black door before her in thought. Finally, she turned from the door to take in the room around her.

It was a decently sized space, she reasoned, eyes combing over the sight before her as she stepped back towards the center of the room once more. The carpet below her feet was plush, and she sunk her toes into it to really get a feel for it – she still wondered, briefly, why she had not been given shoes, but the thought passed from her mind nearly as quickly as it had entered it.

There was a small kitchen on the far left wall of the main room, with an equally small dining space that separated it from the living room – if it could even be called that. There was a large slate colored couch slightly off to the right side of the room, the same couch that she had been pressed down against before. One solitary matching slate armchair sat to the side, a small coffee table placed between the two. An onyx puzzle cube – black, with small, thin color bands – sat atop the coffee table, unfinished.

Thea’s eyes remained on the puzzle cube – she vaguely longed to reach out for it, wondering briefly how the shiny material felt under her hands, but pulled the thought back almost like it had been her own hand. This puzzle cube was Kylo Ren’s, and no matter how much she longed to solve it – to do something that was meditative and didn’t relate to her current situation – she ought not to touch what didn’t belong to her, she thought. Especially not _his_ things. Especially not after what she’d heard about him.

She forced her eyes to turn from the beautiful cube atop the table, and finish their sweep of the room.

On the right side of the room, off behind the couch, were two doors – one was slightly ajar, and she found herself wandering over to cautiously peer inside. The room, after a quick peek, was quite obviously a bathroom. She assumed the room next to it might have been a bedroom, but the door was firmly closed and she wasn’t about to get herself killed snooping.

Turning back around to face the main room again, she caught sight of the only other door in the room – an ominous black door that sat on the same side of the room as the kitchen. There was a complex keypad next to it, and a small red light above the keypad that was blinking a soft red.

Thea had a feeling she didn’t want to know what was on the other side of that door.

The thing in the room that caught her eyes most of all, though, and the one that calmed her heart and put her into a place of frightening tranquility, was the expansive window on the furthest back wall of the room. She found her feet moving of their own accord, bare feet slowly ghosting over the carpeted floor beneath her as she moved to stand before the absolute blanket of white that lay just on the other side of the transparisteel window.

Thea stood there before the window watching the snow fall calmly to the ground for an undetermined amount of time, until she realized how badly she had to use the bathroom. Turning from the window, she plopped herself down on the second couch in the room (it was more of a loveseat, really) that faced the expansive window. She wasn’t about to just up and saunter into Kylo Ren’s private bathroom to relieve herself, she thought, squeezing her legs together to attempt to fight off the feeling of needing to pee _really bad_.

She tried to think about anything else – about how rude it was that she was still handcuffed, about how absolutely insane all of this was, about how much she hated the men who had taken her and murdered her mother – and she was successful for a while, keeping her mind focused on other thoughts than her need to relieve herself. Well, she was successful, at least, until she thought about how cold and wet the snow outside looked…

That last thought was what finally did her in, and she quickly made her way to the bathroom, Kylo Ren be damned.

Making her way into the bathroom, Thea squirmed her cuffed wrists in a way that she could at least lower the black leggings that hugged her bottom half just enough to be able to properly relieve herself. Her eyes remained glued to the open door as the pressure on her bladder was relieved, totally on high alert because she knew that if she shut the door she wouldn’t be able to open it easily due to her wrists being confined behind her back and she _knew_ that if Kylo Ren decided to walk back in there’d be no hiding behind a door that was wide open.

She took care of herself without incident. Though, she was mildly disgusted that she couldn’t properly wash her hands – she’d tried, at least, backwards. It wasn’t very successful.

She wanted these cuffs off.

Thea eventually wandered back into the main room once more, tugging her wrists against the cuffs every so often to see if they would at least _loosen_ some. No such luck.

She finally settled back into the black loveseat the faced the expansive window. Her mind began to wander as she watched the beginnings of a new layer of snow begin to fall. _‘Where am I?’_ she wondered, toes curling lightly against the plush carpet below before relaxing and repeating once more. _‘How did I get mixed up in all of this after so many years of successfully staying hidden?’_

Her brain told her that it had to have been the individual who had seen her in the alleyway that day; it seemed so long ago now – much longer than about two weeks prior, at least.  Regret washed over her form again, now that she was finally alone and really had a chance to think.

 _‘Mama…’_ she thought, gazing out at the falling snow before her. _‘Mama, I’m so sorry…’_

Thea closed her eyes and thought only of her mother’s face, drowning out all other ghosts of thoughts that ebbed and flowed in her consciousness. She thought of the way the corner of her mother’s eyes would crinkle with mirth when she smiled. She thought of the way she used to hum nonsensical songs when she would cook. The way she used to brush out her daughters long hair before bed while she told her fantastical stories about the universe, half of which were probably made up… but it didn’t even matter anyway.

She knew that Lutilee had never wanted to confine her daughter to a life spent mostly living indoors. She knew that her mother tried to make up for this loss of a vital part of growing up in any way she could – scraping together extra money from her work in the shuttle factories to buy exotic and odd trinkets for Thea at the trading bazaar.

In all of her lives, behind all of her faces, Thea’s soul had never felt a connection to any of her ‘parents’ as strong as the one she’d had with the lovely woman she called ‘Mama’. And now it was gone – she could feel the emptiness inside of her chest, like it was some tangible thing. Like she could have reached inside of herself to plug up the hole there, if only her arms were free of the cuffs.

She felt the tears dripping against her legging-clad legs before she realized she was crying. “I’m sorry, mama…” she whispered out loud. Her voice sounded louder than it actually was in the quiet room. “I’m sorry that I was born to you… You never deserved any of this…”

She drew her legs up to her chest, heels digging into the edge of the couch. Burying her face in her knees, she wept for the life of the woman who cared too much – for the life that was ended far too early. Her own pity at her situation seeped into her, pushing into her mind and her heart; in that moment, she was only Thea. She was only the daughter of Lutilee Aylin. She wasn’t the girl of legends. She wasn’t an old soul. She was simply a girl who mourned the loss of her mother.

Eventually, Thea fell asleep against the smaller couch, having laid herself down as best she could while accommodating for the cuffs that still held her arms behind her back.

Her dreams were filled with happy memories for once, albeit tinged with a lingering sense of sadness. The face and voice of her mother was all that filled her mind in those hours, and for that reprieve from her previous remembrances of death, she was thankful. A small sun shaped crystal strung from the chain about her neck, which even now was as warm as the skin upon which it rested, sat directly above Thea’s heart as she slept.

 

* * *

 

 

_“I got you something, Thea.”_

_Thea gazed up at her mother’s face, partially obscured by the small wrapped package she held in her hand. Her eyes quickly locked on the shiny gold foil that covered the package._

_Pushing up from her previous position of lying against the rug in their small living room, Thea crouched on her knees under the large blanket fort the two of them had made together. “Mama, you didn’t have to--“, she began, but Lutilee interrupted her quickly._

_“Happy birthday, darling.” The older woman was practically beaming, and the light that their small camping lamp made cast funny little shadows across her smooth features, momentarily removing all the worry that always seemed to permeate her expressions._

_T_ _hea had nearly forgotten, and she was sure her mother knew it from the sparkle in the other woman’s eye. Her own eyes still held their slightly startled look, but she accepted the package her mother had offered to her with careful hands._

_A small smile began to slide onto her mouth. “What is it?”_

_A laugh, then. “You’ll just have to open it to find out, Thea!” Her mother had shifted positions, and was now sitting shoulder to shoulder with her daughter, looking down at the younger girl’s hands as she carefully began to unwrap the package._

_Thea removed the gold foil carefully, trying her best not to tear the precious paper before placing it softly to the side. From there, her delicate fingers removed the small lid from the box revealed to her, the tiniest of gasps emitting from her throat._

_Lutilee couldn’t help the grin that pulled at her cheeks. “Do you like it?”_

_Thea was silent for the longest time, just staring inside of the box. After what felt like an eternity, her fingers reached inside and she pulled out the most beautiful necklace she thought she had ever seen. In all honesty, there really wasn’t anything entirely too special about it – she’d worn jewels that would have made any queen jealous in previous lives – but this necklace… it was entirely and **only** for her. It felt like it had been made with only her in mind. _

_The sun-shaped stone glinted in the light of the camping lantern as Thea held it aloft to examine it. Yellows and oranges seemed to swirl within the piece, unsure themselves of exactly where each color began and ended._

_Finally, Thea spoke, the words leaving her mouth in a near-whisper as her eyes refused to look away from the necklace. “What… what is it?”_

_Lutilee chuckled slightly at her daughter’s reaction. “It’s Citrine, Thea. The woman at the bazaar said that it was a stone that brought hope. It can’t absorb negativity, so it will always remain pure and grounded. It’s useful for meditation… for dream recall, as well.” There was a knowing look in the woman’s eyes, and Thea turned to regard her for a moment with a small smile._

_“I don’t exactly need help recalling my dreams, Mama.” There was a teasing edge in Thea’s voice, and Lutilee smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners._

_“_ _I know that, dear. But when I saw it, I saw you. I saw that little girl who the universe blessed me with; everything she was, and everything she could be. I saw the hope I had for her. I saw all the beauty she was capable of, and everything I wanted for her all wrapped inside of a stone that reminded me so much of the look in her eyes…”_

_Thea was smiling, a sheen of moisture settling over her eyes. She quickly turned to wrap her arms around her mother’s shoulders, giving an affectionate squeeze which her mother returned with a warm embrace of her own. Thea rested her head against her mother’s shoulder for a moment, lifting her hand to look at the Citrine stone before pulling away. Thea was quick, though careful, to fasten it behind her neck, before picking the small sun-stone from her chest to examine it in the palm of her hand. “Thank you, Mama…” Thea murmured, a small smile on her lips._

_Lutilee watched her daughter for a while longer before she finally spoke again. “Come on, let’s go bring dinner in here. We can eat in the fort tonight. In celebration of you finally becoming a woman, of course!”_

_“We’ll eat like kids, then, obviously…” Thea said, eyes breaking away from the stone to look at her mother, the merriment in them obvious as she laughed. She quickly tucked the beautiful stone into her shirt before she and her mother scurried from their blanket fort to the kitchen, a fit of giggles floating in their wake._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a memory that doesn't involve her dying at the end~ ahaha ;D
> 
> Anywho, hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I am on the cusp before finals week - I have the rest of this week of class and then all of next week before I begin finals. Finals itself won't be so crazy for me - whats going to be insane is this last week of classes. 
> 
> I have about half of the next chapter written, but I don't have a 'buffer' anymore, like I did before. You should still be seeing an update next Wednesday, regardless, because I will take an hour to finish it off this weekend so that I'm not set behind in my updates~ Then once classes are over, I can spend a day just writing out chapters so I have another buffer ready xD 
> 
> Please feel free to chat me up in the comments section! Thank you again for reading <3


	10. Charred Metal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Here we are with the next chapter! Thank you so much for waiting so patiently for an update - this past month was CRAZY with finishing up my undergrad career and heading across country with my friends out to Hiroshima and Kyoto areas for some adventuring (and believe me, there was much adventuring to be had xD). But now I'm home in Tokyo, and preparing to be a real adult, or whatever that means XD
> 
> Anywho, here is the next chapter! Please expect an update next Saturday - we will be returning once more to the one update per week rule (but you might get lucky and get another chapter sooner ;D We shall see). 
> 
> As always, thank you very much to everyone who reads, reviews and comments, bookmarks, subscribes, and leaves kudos! You guys are seriously my inspiration everyday and I couldn't do this without you all~ Much love!
> 
> And a special thank you to my commenters from last chapter, iKanameBelievesInMoriarty and InsertQuirkyUsername~! You both are beautiful souls and I'm so glad to have you reading and sharing your thoughts with me!

Kylo Ren’s shoulders were heaving with each draw of his breath, the sound like a ragged hiss of air through the voice modulator in his helmet. A control panel of some sort lay before him, utterly useless in its current state. He’d rendered it that way – molten edges of fiery metal, hissing and popping with the exposed electrical currents from countless wires and circuit boards that he’d sliced clean in half with his lightsaber only moments prior.

He was alone in the room – he usually always was. No one ever wanted to be around when he was in one of his _moods_.

This _mood_ in particular had been brought about by the Supreme Leaders gracious gift, in fact. A gift that he _should_ have been able to ‘unwrap’, so to speak – a gift he _should_ have been able to read into. But he’d tried to see inside of her mind. He’d tried to legitimize the General’s claims on the orders of the Supreme Leader, but he’d _failed_ because of some _lights_.

Kylo gave one final swing for good measure, a section of one of the embedded computer screens sliding from the wall to the floor with a crash, effectively burning a small patch of floor with the molten edges.

Hux wouldn’t be too happy about that.

The thought brought the _faintest_ of smirks to the Knight’s face, before it disappeared, his mind once again fixating on the girl who was in his quarters at that very moment.

He didn’t even know what her name was – she was a _nobody_ , just some girl whose appearance might as well have been a party trick – and yet she had been able to keep him out. _Him_.

Another roll of anger crested over his shoulders, but he bit it back, lightsaber ceasing its own crackling as he pressed the button to retract the deadly blade.

Kylo turned from the room then, making his way throughout the maze of halls in the base like some black storm cloud, ready to destroy any tiny little town – or ‘employee’, really – who ended up in his path. But the Stormtroopers and staff that he passed weren’t daft. All of them knew what Ren looked like when he was in a killing-kind-of-mood, and even if they didn’t (by some odd chance), the telltale smell of burnt electrical wiring and toasted metal that floated around with him told a good enough story on its own. Most flattened themselves against the walls or scurried down the nearest corridor that wasn’t in his direct trajectory.

No one wanted to die unnecessarily, it seemed.

What a pity.

Kylo eventually arrived at his quarters, entering after the very briefest of pauses at the door. Each step left him feeling slightly more rejuvenated and slightly less unbelievably-angry as he approached what he figured was the source of all of it, stopping behind the couch that faced the expanse of snow beyond. His head turned down to regard the sleeping form of the girl against the couch, and he merely stood there and watched her for a while, an unreadable expression on his face, hidden away behind a silver and black mask.

Kylo noted the way that she was sleeping, arms clasped behind her back, still held together with a pair of cuffs.

It served her right, he thought.

He turned from her then, and made his way into his bedroom to change from his current robes into a fresh set before making his way to one of the training rooms.

He’d given the girl sleeping on his couch one final glance on his way out the door, thoughts briefly turning over exactly what he had seen in her mind – exactly what it was that had kept him out – before he left, not so much as even putting a blanket over her sleeping form.

 

* * *

 

 

Thea awoke with a start, a muffled, startled sound of some sort edging its way from her throat as she cast her eyes quickly around her. It took only a few moments for the memories of how she’d gotten to this rather unfamiliar place to flood back to her. Only then did she calm her racing mind and heart.

Shifting, she groaned as she sat up, rolling her shoulders and trying to wiggle her arms around as best as she could in their state of being shackled behind her back. There was a stiffness in her limbs that made the movements difficult, and she cursed her predicament, and General Hux for placing her in such confines and then not removing them in the first place.

It took her a few moments to really gather her wits about her once more, before she finally stood from her place on the couch and really stretched her back out. Well, as best as she could with her arms behind her back, anyway. A few joints popped in a rather pleasing way as Thea arched herself backwards, inhaling a breath before letting it out in a whoosh of air.

Her golden, fiery orbs were concentrating on the world outside the window again. She stood there, contemplating where in the entire universe she could be, her feet finally guiding her to the space directly in front of the durasteel window.

Thea stood there for a long while, eventually resting her forehead against the cool durasteel as she watched the snow gust around the planet just beyond the window.

With a sigh, she eventually stepped away from the window, and turned to face the room before her. Her footsteps took her slowly toward the middle of the room, eyes turning around her for a sign of Kylo Ren. But he was nowhere to be seen.

What she did notice, however, was the faint smell of something burnt. Nothing in the direct vicinity appeared to be currently on fire, and she wasn’t necessarily alarmed that the place was going to just go up in flames at any moment. But there was just the slightest hint of charred metal lingering in certain places in the room, like the ghost of a scent that was fading away.

She could have pinpointed that smell anywhere, though – something so familiar to her from life on Gorse. Her mother had spent many of her years supervising the Thorilide refiners, but upon the birth of Thea, had shifted her employment to one of the turbolaser repair warehouses in order to better provide for her child. The pay was higher, but with it, there was also an increase for potential life-threatening danger. But Lutilee was brilliant and resourceful, at least in her daughter’s eyes, and never found herself in any greater danger than she would have been working in a Thorilide mine.

Even still, the characteristic smell of charred metal was commonplace when her mother would return home from the warehouses.

The smell sent a pang of hurt – anger, loneliness – through Thea’s heart before it morphed into a longing and eerie comforting calmness, which faded away with the lingering smell as she passed from the center of the room.

It wasn’t long before she noticed the tray of food sitting on the small dining table. It was then that her stomach decided to announce that it was hungry, as well.

Thea turned her head around her a few more times, double and triple checking that she was alone before approaching the food. It was sat out in front of one of the two chairs, a single dull spoon sat to the right of the bowl of what appeared to be a soupy substance.

Thea actually found herself laughing out loud at the absurdity of the situation. First, they had given her a dull spoon and a liquid meal that clearly pointed to the fact that she wasn’t trusted with a knife and fork. What did they think she was going to do, kill herself? And second, how was she even supposed to use the spoon anyway? Her arms were still restrained.

She mulled these thoughts over as she sat in front of the food, before another rather morbid thought invaded her mind. What if the food was poisoned? She paused her movements, staring at the soup before her. “Well, if it _is_ poisoned,” she muttered. “They’re doing themselves a disservice. It’ll be their loss.”

It took her a while to actually bring herself to even attempt to eat, though. She’d realized that in order to do so, she’d have to essentially drink from the bowl before her. That realization had sent another wave of anger rushing through her – confined and treated as nothing more than an animal! She was momentarily furious, to the point that she considered shouldering the tray off the table for Kylo Ren to find when he got back. But her stomach had protested loudly at this thought process, basically begging her not to waste the sustenance.

She’d relented, albeit begrudgingly, and sat herself back against the chair, careful of her confined arms. Eventually, after glaring at the soup for long enough, she finally ate the majority of it. Though, after doing so, she wasn’t really sure she even wanted to call such a tasteless thing ‘soup’ in the first place. She’d stared longingly towards the kitchen for a while after that, wanting nothing more than to prepare some of the foods that Lutilee had taught her to make.

Thea found herself back on the couch she had woken up on not too long after that. She was once again staring out into space, into the blanket of swirling white just beyond the clear wall before her.

She was nearing a place of a meditative lull, when she heard the hydraulics on the door release the characteristic puff of air as they opened. Senses immediately on high alert, she found herself startling into a standing position, turning to face the door at the intrusion to her mental peace.

The swirl of black robes that stormed through the door was an easy indication to the fact that Kylo Ren himself had returned. Thea felt herself tense, although Kylo seemed to totally ignore her form across the room as the door shut behind him. He went directly into the room that Thea had correctly assumed was his room, before closing the door behind him.

Thea stood in the room for a while, unsure of what to do. Had he really not noticed her? She threw that thought away nearly as soon as she’d thought it, the absurdity of the idea even causing her to shake her own head at herself. Of course he’d noticed her. How could anyone not notice her?

She went to take a step a bit further into the room, but the door to Kylo’s room opened immediately as she moved, and she planted herself right back where she’d been, eyes concentrated on the door as his form emerged.

It only took him a few steps to cover the expanse of room, before he was standing a few feet from her. Thea had the overwhelming urge to back up, back away from him. But she somehow willed herself to stand her ground. To not give in to the feeling of desperately wanting to put space between them.

She expected him to speak – expected him to raise his arm and dig (or at least try to dig) through her mind like before. She expected the pain and the sheer invasive feeling of it all.

What she didn’t expect was _what_ he said, voice robotic and low.

“You smell awful.”

She would have laughed if she didn’t look as dumbfounded as she felt. How in the _hell_ could he smell her? Did he even have a nose? And secondly… _what the actual fuck?_

All Thea could do was raise her head in indifferent defiance, shooting a glare towards the mask that watched her.

He watched her for a while, assessing her. Finally, he spoke again, after it was clear that she was not going to give him an answer to a question he hadn’t actually asked. “Get a shower.”

Thea scoffed, half tempted to roll her eyes, up until the point when she felt an invisible force practically clamp her mouth shut to cut off whatever other noises she was about to make. She glared even harder, if that were physically possible. “I can’t have you staying here in such a condition.”

She hated the condescending tone that somehow managed to filter through the mask.

The force on her mouth that had stopped her scoffing abruptly before was gone now, and she retorted in the only way she knew how in that moment. “How am I supposed to do that in _such a condition?_ ” she mocked, wiggling her arms behind herself for emphasis.

Kylo Ren continued to stare at the girl before him for a long time, the fist at his side clenching and releasing every so often. Thea made momentary eye contact with it, before once again turning her attention back to his mask.

She was relatively surprised to hear the click of the cuffs, and feel their weight release as they clattered to the floor. She drew her arms around to her front instinctively, rubbing lightly at the slightly chaffed skin of her right wrist in particular.

There was a confliction beginning to form in her mind – was she supposed to thank him for that? But the conflict within her was flattened and erased immediately as he tossed some clothes at her, letting them fall to the floor as he turned without so much as a word to her and made his way back to his bedroom, firmly shutting the door behind him.

Thea glared after his retreating form, still rubbing her wrist, before she finally turned her eyes down to inspect the damage to her wrists from being confined in such a way for so long. They were red and there were a few small cuts to the skin of her right wrist in particular, but nothing too bad, and certainly nothing to worry about. Her eyes fell then to the clothes on the floor.

She crouched as she picked them up, inspecting them to find that they were basically just the exact same thing that she was currently wearing – an almost tank-top-like shirt and black leggings, also both probably skin tight. There was also a change of undergarments, which Thea was thankful for, and a towel.

With a final glare tossed towards the bedroom that Kylo Ren now resided in, Thea made her way to the bathroom, placing the fabrics on the ledge of the skin before she stripped and climbed into the refresher. It was exactly as the name indicated it would be – the warm water relaxed her muscles and put her in a place of ease as she cleaned herself, refreshing not only her body, but her mind and soul as well.

Kylo Ren, on the other hand, sat in his bedroom, meditating as he prepared himself for the onslaught of memory-searching – or at least, the attempt at memory-searching – that he would conduct as soon as the girl in the other room was finished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little more Kylo interaction in this chapter, but just wait until next chapter mwahaha~ I'm looking forward to writing the next few chapters because we have some development happening. Can't wait until I can release them to you~ 
> 
> I'm hoping to get another nice big buffer of chapters written, that way I can release them to you guys twice a week instead of once a week~ A girl can dream, and hopefully, I can make that dream a reality T.T 
> 
> Anyway, please feel free to chat with me in the comments section and send me your thoughts and predictions~ <3 Love you all! Thank you again for reading! :3


	11. Even In Sleep...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello, lovely readers! Thank you for tuning in for the next chapter~ A Happy Mothers Day to all the moms out there, by the way~!
> 
> As always, I'd like to thank every single one of you: all of you who read silently, all of you who bookmark or subscribe, all of you who give kudos, and all of you who comment. If you are reading these words right now, know that I am thankful that you are along for the ride, or at the very least, just reading along~
> 
> A special thank you to my commenters from last chapter: BlackGoshawk and iKanameBelievesInMoriarty~! It warms my heart that you continue to read and share your thoughts with me. <3 Thank you! 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!

_I long for scenes where man has never trod—_   
_For scenes where woman never smiled or wept—_   
_There to abide with my Creator, God,_   
_And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,_   
_Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,—_   
_The grass below; above, the vaulted sky._

Excerpt from:  
"Written In Northampton County Asylum" by John Clare

 

* * *

 

 

There was something so utterly and completely refreshing about a hot shower, and Thea reveled in that feeling for as long as she dared. She wanted to totally lose herself to the feeling of the hot water – totally let herself go to a place of full relaxation – but there was something about the fact that Kylo Ren was just one room over, and that this was even his shower in the first place, that kept her from fully relaxing.

After a time period which she deemed an appropriate amount of time to shower had passed, Thea finally stepped from the water, turning it off before toweling off.

She stared at herself for a while in the full length mirror on the wall. She’d tucked her wet hair over her shoulder before turning to examine her back, scowling at the permanent damage that Hux had caused her. The now-silver lash marks crisscrossed all about her back, shining in in contrast to the way her skin glowed, like moonlight reflecting off the surface of the sun. Thea had to turn her eyes from it with a grimace eventually, though.

She dressed herself in silence, mind ruminating on the anger she held towards the red-haired general.

With a sigh, she left the room, running her fingers through her wet hair before pausing only a few strides from the doorway of the bathroom. Kylo Ren was standing in the middle of the room, watching her. Before she’d even had a chance to attempt to speak, he was reaching his arm outward once more, and the same terrible feeling of sharp nails digging through her brain was back.

It was like being slammed full force against a brick wall without so much as a second to brace herself, and Thea found herself on the floor, gasping for air as the pain let up just as instantly as it had arrived. She hadn’t realized that she was on the floor – hadn’t remembered how she’d gotten there. The pain had hit her so hard and fast that it had essentially left her with a small gap in her memory, but from the look of Kylo Ren across the room, he hadn’t gotten off easy either.

But Kylo was recovering and turning on her once more, and Thea let out a scream as the feeling of someone tearing through her brain came right back at her all over again. With his own cry of frustration and pain, Kylo was releasing her from his probe again. He couldn’t understand how she was keeping him out in the first place – all he could see and feel were the same stars, and the same lights, and the same heat that had kept him out not that long ago.

Even in her obviously surprised state, there had been no difference in the intensity of which he’d been kept out of her mind.

Kylo was intrigued by the idea of a challenge, but more than that, he was _angry_ at the fact that he was getting nowhere with this.

Even still, he tried for a while longer.

Thea had no idea how much time had passed; all she knew was that he continued his onslaught of trying to get inside her mind, and for whatever reason, he was kept out each time.

What Thea did know was that she was not actively keeping him out – or at least, she thought she knew. But somehow, he was unable to find the answers he so clearly sought.

It didn’t mean he wouldn’t continue to try, though. And continue to try, he did.

Eventually, once Kylo had had enough, he stormed from the room in a flurry of robes, off to destroy another circuit room or whatever Stormtrooper got in his way in the process, while Thea lay collapsed on the floor, staring silently out of the expanse of window along the back wall.

The only indication of how long she’d been at it with Kylo was the fact that her hair was no longer wet.

 

* * *

 

Three days had passed.

Three days of the same attempts at trying to read into the girl’s mind had come and gone, and yet Kylo Ren had still made no progress. More than that, the most he’d seemed to do was give himself a migraine.

And the girl… The thought of her made his blood boil. He couldn’t even manage to come back to his room angry, because the closer he got to her, the calmer he would begin to feel.

But he wanted to be angry, damn it! He smashed his fist against the nearby wall as he walked, startling a technician who was attempting to scurry past. The poor lad looked like he’d just shit himself, but Kylo didn’t even seem to notice the other males presence – and, for the technician’s sake, that was probably all the better.

He stalked his way deeper into the bowels of the base, before finally arriving at his destination.

Snoke’s hologram was already waiting for him within.

“What progress have you made?”

The Knight of Ren stopped in front of the hologram of his teacher, before turning his masked face upwards to regard him. “The girl’s memories continue to elude me, but…” He paused, fist tightening as he felt his determination to break her – to break his way into her mind – settling into the pit of his stomach. “I sense a change is coming. She will give me what I seek.”

Snoke regarded him for a while, before speaking once more. “Just her presence in this very room filled me with a fire I have not felt in a long time… Kylo Ren, the girl holds the key to your success. Use her wisely.”

Kylo dipped his head in a slight nod, eyes focusing on the image of Snoke before him as he answered. “I will not disappoint you…”

 

 

* * *

 

“Rest. You need to build up your strength.”

Thea glared at Kylo from underneath a fringe of long white-blonde hair that had fallen into her vision. Her chest was heaving with the draw of each breath. She was exhausted, but even still, that exhaustion could not quell the contempt that bubbled up before she bit it back down. It would do no use, she thought bitterly. This was her situation, and had been for the past week.

She made her way towards the Knight’s bedroom, and attempted to take the spot on the floor next to the bed – this had been their little ‘arrangement’, once Kylo had figured out that the more uncomfortable Thea was when she slept, the more _uncomfortable_ it was when he was so roughly denied access to her mind.

She had been camping out on the couch, but he’d pretty much forced her to sleep on the floor in his room in an attempt to make things easier on himself. It hadn’t necessarily worked – the floor was still rather undesirable when it came to a list of the best possible places to sleep. Thea had awoken with a crick in her neck that continued to nag at her throughout the day since she’d begun this new sleep routine.

And Kylo seemed to have noticed this. As the blonde moved to take her spot on the floor, she’d felt that invisible force knock her towards the bed, almost like a swift push. But she’d managed to catch her footing before she’d fallen, whirling on him with a glare that she wasn’t even attempting to hide.

“It won’t matter!” she began, already knowing what he was getting at. “You can’t get in, anyway. You haven’t been able to, no matter what you’ve tried. What difference will this make?” She gestured vaguely towards the large bed that was now behind her.

Kylo had advanced on her form then, that invisible force pushing down on her once more, down against the bed.

She grit her teeth as she glared up at the silver and black mask. She was more than certain, now, that he must have needed it to survive – that he must have been an android of some kind – because she’d never seen him without it off, and she’d never seen him eat. He was always up before she was and was always asleep after (or at least, she assumed this). He was an enigma, one that only continued to confuse her the more time she spent in his presence.

He regarded her for a long time, before he finally spoke. “You will sleep on the bed, girl.”

Kylo was certain this would make some sort of difference – if she was better rested, then the pain and the glaring lights that kept him out wouldn’t be so abrasive, her _attitude_ wouldn’t be so abrasive, and he could figure out a way around whatever the energy was that was keeping him out in the first place. He just needed to be able to stay in her head for longer. Or so he told himself.

The overwhelming frustration at not being able to find the answers he sought, even a week after he’d started searching, were beginning to really get to him. There was a sort of desperation about his attempts, one that actually only aided in making it harder for him to find his way in.

It didn’t help that Hux seemed to be aware of his… _inability_ to find the answers he sought.

Thea continued to glare at him, even as his back turned on her and he made his way out of the bedroom. The force holding her to the bed eased up, and she sat up, bare feet planted against the carpet as she glared holes in his back.

She would not, in fact, admit to him that his bed was obviously more comfortable than the floor or the couch, and that she was tired to the point that all her body longed for was the soft touch of a decent place to actually gain some regenerative sleep.

She would not, in fact, admit that she had debated taking quick naps on the very same bed on at least two occasions over the past week when her body begged her not to lay down on the floor again – when there was a clearly comfortable mattress just feet from her and no angry-black-mass in sight.

She had resisted, as was only natural, but now that she had been forced down and practically ordered to sleep in the bed, there was that small part of her – a tiny voice in her head – begging her not to fight it this time.

But Thea’s pride still remained at least somewhat in tact, and she forced herself to stand, even against the protests of that tiny voice in her mind. “Even in sleep, I have no reprieve of you!” she shouted after him.

Kylo cast a glance over his left shoulder in her direction, watching her form as it seemed to glow slightly more than normal. Her teeth were clenched together and her fists were balled up at her sides, arms taught and straight. It was the stance of a frustrated individual. The stance of someone who wanted to fight back.

His mask gave away nothing as he turned his head from her, sending a push with the Force to knock her back once more against the bed as he left, the faint cry of her frustration evident to his ears even as the doors to the room closed behind him, and he made his way off to meditate… and plan.

Thea, on the other hand, let out a cry of frustration and anger – at her situation, at _everything_. She let herself remain against the bed as she glared up at the ceiling, wondering if Kylo Ren was even aware of what her name was, before eventually letting herself drift into some semblance of slumber.

She had only half meant what she’d said, when she’d proclaimed that even in sleep she could not be free of him. At least her dreams were still her own, and for that, she was thankful.

There, and only there, she could pretend that nothing in her life had changed.

There, and only there, she could dream of past lives, of places she longed to visit, of the feel of fresh grass beneath her fingers and the smell of open country air above her dozing form. 

There, and only there, she was totally removed and totally free from whatever they wanted from her – the mysterious man in the black robes, the power-hungry general with fiery red hair, and the old man perched atop the throne that they both took orders from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do we think Kylo Ren's plan will be, hmmmm? ;D I'd love to see your theories, if you have any. Otherwise, you'll be finding out next Saturday whether you guessed correctly or not <3 
> 
> Thank you all again for the read~ I look forward, as always, to any thoughts that you'd like to share with me <3 Much love!


	12. Intruding Shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello everyone! I hope that you all are having wonderful days - thank you for making it this far with me, so far! Hopefully you're enjoying the story~
> 
> Thank you to each and every one of my readers, everyone who gave Kudos, everyone who has commented thus far, and to all of you who have subscribed and bookmarked! :D You guys literally just light up my world - thank you! 
> 
> A special thanks to iKanameBelievesInMoriarty and Sikudhanii for commenting since the last update a week ago! :D You two are the sweetest ever and I just want to shower you in Kylo Ren merchandise... and Kylo Ren~ ahaha
> 
> Anyway, here's the next chapter! Enjoy, my darlings <3

_The woods are lovely, dark and deep,_  
_But I have promises to keep,_  
_And miles to go before I sleep,_  
_And miles to go before I sleep._

Excerpt from:  
“Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost

 

* * *

 

 

The next few days continued much the same as the previous week.

Thea was growing weary from the continued onslaught. If she wasn’t the one on the receiving end of Kylo’s obsession, she might have been inclined to think that his persistence was admirable. As it were, she was the one receiving his daily attempts to access her memories, and her thoughts about the whole situation were… less than pleasant, to say the least.

Kylo, on the other hand, was under the impression that he had made some sort of improvement, as the pain that was caused to him by attempting to delve into Thea’s mind was somewhat less painful than it had been. He was sure that it had to do with the fact that she was receiving adequate amounts of sleep in a bed, rather than on the floor or on the couch.

He still couldn’t figure out why he was unable to do anything more than blind himself with the scorching lights that filled his mind every time he tried to push into her thoughts or memories. She was locked off from him, and his already nearly nonexistent patience was growing thinner by the minute due to the fact that it was her memories he was most interested in, and it was her memories that were somehow shielded from his sight.

He felt like he was missing something, though. Something she had said, maybe… or something he had seen. Maybe it was something he had read – he didn’t know anymore. But there was an itch in the back of his mind that he couldn’t quite scratch - a seed of some sort that had been planted, and was beginning to sprout into an idea.

If only he could remember what it was that he had forgotten…

 

* * *

 

 

The first night that Kylo had actually returned to his quarters at the same time that Thea was sleeping was the night that the idea-seed that had been planted in his head finally bloomed. In the past week and a half of his mind probing, he had not slept in the same room as her at the same time that she did, instead, resting at different times than she did, the sleep schedule of both never coinciding with the other.

But this night had been different, and Kylo had returned to his quarters to find her fast asleep in his bed. The Knight of Ren was momentarily angered at the concept that he would share a bed with her if he were to lay down, but found his anger cooling itself off as he simply did not have the energy to fight it – that, and as was always the case when he got within close proximity of her, he felt his anger cooling itself naturally anyway.

He would take an hour long power-nap and wait to fully rest until she awoke, he decided. Then, with both recharged, he could have a potentially easier process of making some real progress in his mind probing.

But Kylo had not been expecting to feel as refreshed as he did when he awoke after only an hour. And he had not been expecting to dream of a girl made of fire, who’s very presence in his dream had left him feeling strangely energized and alert.

He knew that the girl who lay just across the expanse of bed from him was in fact the same one that he had dreamed of. The fact that her presence in his dream had brought him energy he had not felt in a long time would have seemed strange to him if he hadn’t already recognized that being in close proximity to her altered his moods as well.

But this increase in energy was also what he needed in order to finally make the connection to something that she had said to him a few days prior.

_‘Even in sleep, I have no reprieve of you.’_

He watched her sleeping form for a while, expression tucked away safely behind his mask.

_‘Even in sleep, I have no reprieve of you.’_

His eyes focused on the way that her eyes were moving rapidly behind her eyelids. She was dreaming.

_‘Even in sleep, I have no reprieve of you.’_

He was just testing a theory, he told himself as he reached his leather-gloved hand outward towards her head. And something told him that this theory was spot on.

 

* * *

 

 

_It took Kylo a moment to figure out where he was… or rather, where he wasn’t._

_He could hear muffled sounds around him. They were faint, whispers of a conversation he strained to understand, sounding almost as if he were listening submerged underwater. There was a weight pressed against his eyelids, keeping him submerged in the darkness that surrounded him. He fought the feeling, eventually opening his eyes to a world of blotted colors and fuzzy images._

_It took a while for the feeling of being underwater to subside, but eventually, Kylo Ren found himself no longer in his bedroom, no longer aboard the base. He could feel his physical presence there, of course, far away from him, off somewhere in the back of his mind… But for all intents and purposes, he existed currently in… a kitchen?_

_His eyes turned around him, taking in the images as they began to sharpen into focus further. The voices that had been so far away before were now closing in on him, and what was being said was finally coming into focus as well._

_“—and Salva… you know, the guy who accidentally caused a backup on one of the production lines for the Thorilide casings? Well, apparently he accidentally set fire to his workstation today.” There was laughter, and then two people entering the kitchen. One of them was clearly the girl who he knew, who he knew was apparently sound asleep in the bed next to him, outside of this dream reality. The other looked like a slightly older, and slightly **duller** version of the same girl; essentially, the major difference between the two was that the older one clearly didn’t glow. _

_Kylo took a defensive stance as they continued to approach, but the two kept walking, almost as if they hadn’t seen him._

_He would have been confused about the fact that he hadn’t been noticed, up until the point where one of them – the girl with the strange glow – walked right through him. It was the oddest feeling – a coldness that started in his chest and radiated out through his entire being, one that he couldn’t quite explain._

_Thea, on the other hand, had been dreaming of a memory. One that had happened maybe a month prior to her kidnapping. As was routine, she would meet her mother at the front door when she would return home from her shifts. Then, Lutilee would fill Thea in on all the happenings at the factory, before the two would go to the kitchen to make dinner. Thea had been entering the kitchen, laughing along with her mother at the thought of Salva – a rather klutzy Devaronian who’d barely been working at the factory for three weeks – causing yet another commotion. She’d never actually met any of her mother’s coworkers, but Lutiee was quite the artist, and would always draw illustrations of individuals that she met and deemed important, and her interpretations of things that had happened as a way to help Thea feel more connected to the outside world._

_It was as she’d been about to reply that she’d walked through a cold spot in the middle of the kitchen. She’d brought her steps to a halt as her mother continued on towards the refrigeration unit, turning to look behind her._

_Thea had **thought** that she’d seen a mass of black out of the corner of her eye, but looking behind her, nothing had changed. She was confused, though – that hadn’t been a part of the original memory. But her mother was continuing to talk just as she had the first time this conversation had happened. “Thea, what do you want to eat for dinner?” She was leaning inside of the fridge, not bothering to look back at the slightly troubled look on her daughters face. _

_Thea brushed the oddness of this occurrence away for now, promising herself that she’d meditate on it when she woke. All she wanted right now, more than anything, was to continue this relatively happy memory with her mother. “Oh, I don’t know, mama… Anything is good.”_

_Kylo Ren had watched, intrigued, as the girl – Thea, the other woman had called her – glanced over her shoulder one more time at him without actually seeing him, a puzzled look on her face as she turned back to continue to converse with the other woman._

_Kylo crossed his arms over his chest, glancing around himself at the place he was, before wandering out of the room, the feeling of triumph at finally finding his way into her mind bubbling up inside of his chest. But the further away from the two he got, the more he felt the feeling of being underwater return, until the world around him was fuzzy and blurry and all sounds were muted and muffled once more._

With a mental push of his own, he was exiting Thea’s dreams, and finding himself right back where he’d started. Watching Thea in the bed next to him for a while longer, he knew then that he’d found his way in, his redeeming moment leaving him with a sense of a victory just around the bend.

With that feeling settling into his stomach, Kylo Ren removed himself from the bedroom and his quarters, heading to one of the more secluded observation decks to meditate and brainstorm – he’d made his way in, for certain. But he needed to think long and hard about how he might go about directing her memories to better suit his needs in future searches.

He made the decision then that only once he was certain that he had made real, honest progress, would he report his findings to the Supreme Leader.

 

* * *

 

 

_Thea was dreaming of one of her lives of past, reliving a memory from a planet called Earth. It was the most recent life that she had had, before awakening in this life with all of her memories intact, and she found her mind drifting to its comforting reality and relatively happy memories on more than just a few occasions._

_This time was no exception to that rule._

_This particular memory was of a vacation that she had taken with a group of three of her closest friends to a magical little gem of a town on the very tip of Cape Cod._

_She found herself walking down Commercial Street, arm entwined with her friend Sarah’s arm, while their two closest male friends – Samuel and Todd – walked in front, their deep laughter echoing with the girls own at something that Todd had said._

_“Well, if that’s how it is,” Sarah began, “you might as well start your own comedy club up here. Then the rest of us don’t have to pay to watch you make an ass of yourself on stage.” Samuel started laughing, a deep and hearty laugh, while Thea only grinned._

_Todd was pouting. “Ah, come on Sarah. You know I’m hilarious… Back me up Aubrey.”_

_Thea blinked. Aubrey… Yes, that was what she had been named in this life._

_“…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” was her response after a pause in which Todd had turned to bat his lashes at her. She grinned as his smile fell into a playful pout, and Sarah and Samuel burst out laughing._

_It was the honest truth, she thought after a second, while the other three began to chat again, the group moving closer to the docks. She didn’t remember what the beginning of this conversation had been about, but thankfully, this had been her response all along. It didn’t really matter though – each word that came from her mouth felt entirely natural to her, even if took her a moment or two to remember what she had even been doing in that memory in the first place. It was sort of like rewinding a movie to play it back again, except the actors knew that they were being rewound and replayed and couldn’t do anything to change their lines. And in this case, she was the only ‘actor’._

_But just as she was thinking this, she caught a strange movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head. It had been there again, she thought. That black mass from the dream the night before._

‘That’s not right…’ _, her mind told her._ ‘That wasn’t a part of the original memory.’

_The mass was visible to her in the small flashes between individuals in the crowd. Always behind a group – always a short distance away. It felt like she was being watched. Felt like she was being followed… But the mass was more embodied than it was when she had originally seen it the night before._

_Even still, she couldn’t place what this figure was. It was like being watched by a shadow that would fade from view, or just straight up disappear, every time it was directly looked at._

_And it didn’t help that it was aided by the crowds of Commercial Street._

_With a feeling of unease, Thea continued through the rest of this memory. It was supposed to be a happy one, she reasoned as she laughed along with her friend’s jokes, the group boarding one of the Dolphin Fleet ships to head out to whale watch. But there was a sourness that existed in it now, a feeling of danger dancing around the outskirts of her mind, one she couldn’t quite name. Her mind dwelled on this as the group of four stood at the bow, cracking jokes and taking in the sea breeze._

_Kylo, on the other hand, watched Thea depart with the group she was a part of from just beyond the crowd that was making its way down the pier._

_This dream was different - the setting was different, the people were different, her **face** was different. This had at first unnerved him. But he'd somehow known it was her... Even if it wasn't for her faintly glowing skin that was somehow dampened by the bright sun above, Kylo had a feeling that he would have recognized her anywhere, even if she did not look the same as he knew her. Even if she was hiding behind a different face. _

He'd pulled himself from her dream then, taking his leave of the bedroom to meditate for a while on the couch in front of the expansive window. Try as he might, he had not been able to direct the dream as he'd wished. But he had noticed that he'd begun to solidify more, although for the most part, while Thea had seemed to notice his presence (or at least that something was off), she hadn't actually been able to  _see_ him. It was curious, he thought, settling against the couch and beginning to clear his mind.

But he would figure out how to get the answers he sought, one way or another. And with that, he fully relaxed himself, and let himself slip off into a meditative state. 

 

* * *

 

 

Upon waking the next morning, Thea sat in the bedroom by herself for a long while. It was like this every morning – she was always alone. She could hear movement on the other side of the door though, and so she chose to avoid the morning ‘ritual’ of Kylo’s attempt at entering her mind for a few chance moments of time to just _think_.

But try as she might, she had no explanation for the strange new shadow that seemed to be gaining a more tangible and corporal form throughout the past two nights dreams. She sat for a long while, eventually gathering the strength to stand from the bed and make her way to the door.

What she did know, she thought miserably as she opened the door, was that she did not feel the least bit rested.

Kylo Ren was waiting for her in the middle of the living room. But he wasn’t watching her this time – instead, his form was facing towards the expanse of window.

She watched him for a moment, taking in the profile of the metal mask and robes, layer upon layer of black. Finally, she spoke.

“I know this probably doesn’t mean anything to you, and you’ll probably just continue on the way that you’ve been going, but…” She paused as his head turned to face her, biting her lip in hesitation before finally continuing. “But I…” Thea’s shoulders slackened slightly. “I don’t feel rested.” There was something in her voice that hinted at the fact that she was troubled by something… Shaken up, even.

Maybe it was that fact that influenced his decision, or maybe it was the actual look of her – mussed hair, tired eyes. Maybe it was the fact that he knew the difference between the pain he received during an attempted mind-reading while she was exhausted, and while she was rested. Whatever it was, Thea had not been expecting the answer that he gave.

“Gather your strength.” There it was again, those same three words he said to her every time after he finished trying to dig into her mind. Thea felt the glare beginning to cut into her vision at his words.

“We will continue upon my return.”

She felt herself gaping at him at the very last sentence, though. He wasn’t going to just try to dig his way into her mind then and there, anyway? “Uh…” she began, drawing a blank at how to actually react to that.

Without even waiting for her response on her end, he was leaving, door locking behind him as he strode from the room, while Thea threw herself down against the couch with a frustrated sigh, just waiting for the Stormtroopers that brought her food at random intervals throughout the day to show up so she could get some food in her stomach.

Although the thought of having to deal with Kylo Ren later, while feeling so absolutely shitty and ill-rested, really didn’t do anything to help her appetite.

Neither did the thought of the unknown shadow that had begun to creep over her sleeping memories.

She had a very bad feeling that she was going to find out exactly what it was soon, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun little note: The name Aubrey, which I chose for Thea's life from Earth (woo! go our planet! <3) is a nod to my absolute favorite Lord of the Rings fanfiction, which recently drew to a close~ 
> 
> Anyway, our little Kylo Ren has finally figured a way in, but will he gain control of her memories and learn to direct them to show him what he wants to see? Only time will tell! :D 
> 
> Thank you so much for the read! Please feel free to leave me any thoughts you may have~ As always, expect an update in a week! I am leaving Japan for the US on Tuesday, and then leaving my home state for Florida on Wednesday so this week will be a little hectic BUT the next chapter is pre-written and I have a 12 hour flight with PLENTY of time to fill, so there will be lots of writing to be had while I'm flying home~


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